Ask HN: Whats your pen and paper setup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Whats your pen and paper setup?

6 pointsidoh6 comments

Following up on this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581229), What's your pen and paper setup? I love hearing about it and getting ideas.

Right now I'm on LEUCHTTURM1917 dotted grid hard back, TWISBI ECO fountain pen, with Noodler's Baystate Blue.

I've tried a couple different "systems", but I just keep coming back to keeping everything in one book, one topic per page, and having a to-do list that I re-write when it gets a couple pages in.

Professionally I've tried using pen and paper, but the main obstacle is that at any given point in time I have maybe 10-12 different projects, and the projects take months to complete. If I have it in a notebook, the projects get buried and it's hard to pull up the info. But for my personal stuff, I love kicking back at the end of the day with a fountain pen, notebook, glass of wine, and get organized.

What's your setup?

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I've been waiting, hoping that others would be using more notebooks than me...

Right now I'm using 2 paper notebooks an A4 LEUCHTTURM 1917 Master Slim dot grid in Red, I've also done the orange for a while. This is basically my going through making notes in meetings, projects, etc. I've gone as far as cutting old pages out and making mini folios with Washi tape within the notebook for projects that continue over. This is my 4th or 5th of these and while I really like them, I might change to a more desk type longer notebook when I'm through this book. I'm ready to make a change in this.

I also and currently using a Stalogy 365 day planner in grid. I ran out of my A5 notebook, wanted to try a soft cover and planner. This was the best solution on August. So far I like the soft cover, like the paper, don't like the grid, don't like the way the date is set up. Still up in the air if I buy a new planner for 2020.

Then I have an assortment of "pocket notebooks" the Write notebooks version of Field Notes. I want to love these, but I can't make them work for me.

For the pens/pencils,I really enjoy fountain pens. Currently inked: TWSBI Diamond Mini AL (Gold) 1.1 Stub nib with Iroshizuku Ku Jaku TWSBI 580 AL (Rose) 1.1 Stub nib with Pilot Metropolitan Medium nib with Iroshizuku Ina Ho Nemosine Singularity Purple Demonstrator.8 Stub nib with Nemosine Moon Crater Black Karas Kustoma Ink in Purple and Brass with a 2-tone M nib with Iroshizuku Yu Yake

Then a Rotring 600 .5mm and a Pentel P207 in .7mm

Adding to the above:

I used to be on Moleskine, but sadly their quality declined and they added a bewildering array of products that makes me question their focus on just making a quality notebook.

I have tried Japanese notebooks, and the paper quality is really excellent. However, I haven't found a hard-back Japanese notebook. Getting the soft cover notebook all dinged up isn't atheistically acceptable for me.

I have tried out blank pages, lined, graph, and dotted grids. Dotted grids work the best for me - less constraining than lines, but I'm not neat enough to use blank pages, and graph paper is a little too much visually.

Have you tried the Maruman ‘Mnemosyne’ notebooks? They have (thin) hard plastic covers, but I’m not sure if you’d count that as a hardcover.

I really like my TWSBI Diamond 580 with Noodler’s Walnut, but it looks best on yellow paper. I tried a jade green ink but it mostly seemed to clog up my pens.

One day I’ll start digitizing my handwritten notes, but I usually write stuff down to make sure I’ll remember and almost never refer to precious notes.

Never tried them, will look into them. Thanks for the tip!

A while back I figured that I like writing in the books, but rarely use them for reference. So I just get rid of them after a while. I think it is OK for things to be ephemeral.

The cheapest notebook I can find and an InkJoy pen. I also keep a smaller notebook just for a to do list.

Printer paper, pen.

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