I found out about Midori Traveler’s Notebook through no idea
where, it made me start using notebooks. It made me more productive. After a
while, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get a MTN.
But as I dive deeper, I found that most users seem to be
using it for aesthetic purposes and blogging on a paper rather than for
productivity. It’s a notebook to help you remember things to do, events that
take place. Not for you to bring on your travels in $50 leather bag that only
fits one MTN + various colour pens/sticky tape/insert quotes that you find
meaningful.
Don’t blame me, I’m a guy, I would be pretty pissed if we
spent so much money to go abroad and time spent is “notebooking” (fingers
inverted commas).
Firstly, notebook is a means to be productive and save time,
by spending time “paper-blogging”, it is quite counter-intuitive no?
Secondly...
search image for photo credit please
Anyways, I saw someone on facebook wanted to know how I use
my MTN, it’s boring, but it works for me.
I work in a shipping company, I have to take note of the daily operations of slightly less than 20 ships. Unlike most 9-5 jobs, I work in the office from 9-6 daily, but any other time, I am on call and have to check my email constantly on the go. The only time I get to not do that is if I don't work in shipping. FYI, it costs 2-3 times my monthly salary to operate a commercial oil/chemical tanker a day.
I lug my MTN around every where I go, especially on weekends when I do not have my office desktop in front of me.
This is how it looks like from 9-6. Too lazy to loop it properly.
Pretty, straightforward, the gap is from the pen (uniball 307 with jetstream refill). It lives in the page as a book mark for the last written page. The stringy book mark is used on the vessel schedule page that changes weekly.
I have 3 booklets inside:
- Week in two pages (credit to Ray Blake) for my personal events, usually is nothing much. I do not record birthdays or anniversaries unless I'm doing something that day. Wishing someone happy birthday is not doing something so I do not write down birthdays.
- MTN Ruled notebook - this is where I write all my work stuff. I initially wanted to try bullet journal style, but quickly realise it is pointless. So everything is marked with either a "-" or "•". More important/critical stuffs will be underlined or boxed. when it is done or irrelevant, it gets 3 crosses (one at the front, one in the middle, one at the end). Don't strike it out, so that even if it is over, I can still read it.
As you can see, I printed some chronodex (credit to scription). I only use it when I have a very busy day or if I am sleepy and this helps me not think of what to do next rather than as a daily use thing to show people and blog about it.
- 2015/16 monthly view calendar (credit to Ray Blake again). I'm getting married in 2016 end. I use this monthly view calendar to note down important dates or things coming up. e.g. when we signed for our banquet, when we took our wedding photos, extra points to note. any our-wedding related things.
I cut the edges all at one go using scissors because I don't care how neat the edges are.
As you can see, it is boring, I do use a bit of semi translucent post-it stubs to mark out pages that needs constant referring. Or the current month/week in my two calendar styled booklets.
I also used an old folder to make the folder thingy, it helps to make writing easy when I have no surface to write on, and it keeps the shape I suppose.
I am not saying that it is stupid to bring out colour pens all the time, it is your hobby/lifestyle to use your MTN as a decorative thing to put on blogs/instagram/facebook/twitter and show people your colourful pages. I see some use it as a wallet on their passport size which I understand, but what I don't understand is keeping paperbags, tickets inside. And also having so much pens that the pens takes up as much space as the MTN. But I do have to say, it is a very beautiful thing and I appreciate beauty...like a vase or whatever.
