The Evil and Catch-All Notebooks
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This is in response to Marcia Francois's post a few days ago - My Favourite Organising Tools #1 - Notebooks.
I, too, looove notebooks! Michael's Arts & Crafts carries a variety in their dollar bins - you can't beat 'em.
But I have notebooks for everything and friends and family muse as to how I can keep track of stuff in so many notebooks. Well, they all have a purpose and that purpose needs to be designated before starting the notebook. Some examples of mine include Books I've Read, Affirmations, Client Hours & Other Info, Organizing Tips… Then there's my two favorite: THE EVIL NOTEBOOK and the Catch-all.
The EVIL one is basically a journal with my most wicked, nasty thoughts - filled with profanity, I'm sure. Thing is, I never go back and read it like I do other journals. This is the one I grab when I hate my husband (come on, I know you all hate your sig others at one point or another), when my crazy M-I-L does another stupid, off-the-wall, hovering behavior in regards to her darling son or my darling children, when the mail lady leaves me just one too many nasty notes - you get the idea. I yell, I scream, I holler, I call names, I say lots of things that I don't mean. Sometimes I draw mean pictures and scribble them out. Doesn't that always feel good? To press really hard and scribble something out? And then I feel better and can move on. When the notebook is full it goes right into the fire. Kind of symbolic.
My kids'll make me mad about something and then sheepishly ask, "Am I going to be in the Evil Notebook?" 
All my notebooks are fair game and open to inquiring eyes, but not the Evil one. That one's under lock and key.
The Catch-all notebook is to me like barnacles are to whales. It goes everywhere I do. And functions just as that - a catch-all: a journal, a to-do list, a place to put cool quotes, voice message notes, grocery lists, recipes, phone #'s etc. At the end of every day or every few days, I transfer what needs to be, otherwise it's a permanent record of my life. At the end of a notebook, I will go back and pull out anything that needs to be, otherwise a few post-it flags go in for future reference if needed and it goes on the shelf with the rest. And I think it's really fun to pull out notebooks from years gone by and remember. OK, it might not be coffee table reading, but it's a personal biography without actually having to write one!
How else do you guys use your notebooks? I just remembered that my TMJ dentist wanted a record of my wearing my appliance. Guess what? Yep. Got it's own notebook!
And is there any cooler feeling than staring at a crisp new - front page - of a notebook?! You almost don't want to ruin it by writing in it!
Posted March 7, 2008, filed in Just for Fun, Living Simply
Tags: notebooks organizing with notebooks journaling clutter control freak blog stacksandstacks.com tami gallagherTrackback URL