Stop Doing List (and my monthly notebook)

 

This month I have been using two notebooks one of which is an A6 Campo Marzio Design Notebook (pictured above) which is part of the Campo Marzo bundle of notebooks I bought last year. The notebook I have been using has a bright blue cover and grey paper. Using a mechanical pencil on grey paper actually looks quite beautiful and works very well. but I have also been using coloured stabilo pens, Frixion Pens and normal biro pens and the pencil is generally my favourite – but as usual I simply use what I have to hand.

The unfortunate thing about this notebook is that is does not wear well travelling in my bag all day and does not deal well with water. I have a few obvious water stains on the cover from general use/wet weather etc and where the pages have been damp, you can’t write over much to my frustration. But it is a nice notebook it just feels more like a disposable notebook and not a notebook you intend to keep and refer back to and have a proud place on your shelves.

Finally I would like to share with you my new stop doing list. With the A to Z Challenge starting in a matter of days I wanted to reevaluate my stop doing list:

Looking forward to getting started 🙂

 

 

Notebooks from Fabriano

These A5 Fabriano Notebooks caught my eye while walking through the airport. Unfortunately I didn’t have time for a proper look – but the colours are simply fantastic.

Their website has a FANTASTIC range of notebooks that are worth a browse and I will be adding a few to my #wishlist

A to Z 2014 Theme Reveal

Back in 2012 when I first took part in the A to Z Challenge – I took part without deciding on a theme and simply blogged an A to Z (generally) – you can find links to those posts here. After a year off I am back again, looking forward to getting stuck into another enjoyable month of blogging. This year I wanted to have more focussed content and decide on a theme. I considered a number of themes this year: A to Z of Notebooks, A to Z of Notebook Brands, A to Z of Specific Purpose Notebooks, A to Z of Journals, A to Z of monthly notebooks. I decided to still stick to a broad theme of an A to Z of Notebooks to appeal to a wider audience .

Hope to see you again during the challenge.

 

 

Revisiting your Monthly Notebooks – Make it Actionable

February felt like such a short month and with other commitments taking up all my time I have somehow filled my January Monthly Notebook, but not ACTIONED all of it. So this week I have started going back through my TuNeues Notebook and made it actionable.

So how am I making it actionable? I have tried many different methods this time I have chosen to do this using a Frixion Light by Pilot (an erasable highlighter).Starting at beginning of my old monthly notebook I have assumed that I have actioned and dealt with most of the notes that I have made. I use the highlighter to mark up those things that I wish to do in the future – e.g. writing ideas, things to research, things to do or things I have to read. If something is not actionable but I want to transfer the information to another place or notebook I also do this at the same time. Any extra notes that I want to add while reviewing the existing notes I usually write these in the highlighter pen as well so that I can tell they are new and relate to the freshly highlighted content.  I usually carry out this initial review on the go when I have a quiet or idle moment such as when travelling by bus or waiting at the train station.

Following the initial review I then set aside a block to time to work on the actionable to-dos highlighted in the notebook. This is usually when I have some free time and I am in front of my computer (but not always the case).

There are two approaches you can take: focussed or easy-going:

1). If there are a lot of items that can be carried out at different times it can be worth using a spare page and writing a to-do list (or incorporating the actionables into your to-do list with a page reference if necessary); or

2). Simply browsing the notebook and picking something you are inspired to (or feel like doing) within that time block.

Either method can be very effective. It is also a great method of reviewing used monthly notebooks before archiving them.