Showerthought: Migrating to a traveler's notebook was 6 months of wasted effort

I spent half a year forcing myself into a traveler's notebook system because 'everyone' was doing it. Multiple inserts, janky bands, fumbling for the right notebook at every meeting. Then I watched a video of some guy in Portland just using a simple A5 with a single bookmark, no fuss. It clicked that I was making bullet journaling harder than it needs to be for the sake of being trendy. Has anyone else ditched a system they were forcing just because it looked cool online?

3 comments

3 Comments

betty1261mo agoMost Upvoted

Field Notes are A6, not A5 like you mentioned.

paulc931mo ago

Three weeks in a Field Notes and never looked back. Trend chasing is a trap.

holly_craig1mo ago

Funny you mention that Portland guy, I actually heard of him in a podcast where someone was talking about how he just uses a single notebook and a pen he found in a drawer. It blew my mind because I was the same way with my traveler's notebook. I had three inserts, a zippered pouch, some sticky tabs, and I was constantly losing the elastic band trying to swap things out. Then I realized I was spending more time organizing the system than actually writing in it. There's something freeing about just grabbing one notebook and a pen, no fuss, no decision fatigue. Field Notes are cute but too small for me, A5 is where it's at, just keep it simple. Trend chasing is a trap for sure, it took me way too long to see that.