A NOTE ON NOTEBOOKS
and the joy of note-taking
I stare at my collection of notebooks.
Volumes of different sizes, cover designs and types of paper stare back at me. Some ruled, some dotted, some plain. Some simple, blue-lined ones that kids use in schools, few castaway yearly planners from my dad and some fancy sketchbooks, mostly gifted by dear friends. All filled with sketches and notes taken over the decades in varied colours of ink, replete with changing handwriting and sketching ability.
Many joyous moments of my life have been spent in the company of notebooks.
I have held them close during long walks around cities as I made quick sketches and noted observations which a camera couldn’t capture. I have scribbled endlessly into them at conferences and webinars, filling every corner with bits of information, interesting quotes by the speaker and keywords about topics. I have ideated my heart out using mind maps and hand-drawn venn diagrams and flowcharts.
Noted down on the pages of these notebooks are sketches and abridged records of lectures by eminent scholars at conferences and seminars, artists invited to speak at our neighbourhood library, and subject experts I have met only through the medium of a computer screen.
My notebooks are a lifelong connection to people and events.
Taking notes is a habit that I formed early in life to overcome the restlessness that arose from the humdrum of daily life. As a kid who easily slipped into day-dreams, far away from lessons in the classroom to a world inhabited by stories and fantasy, taking notes helped keep my mind anchored in the present moment. My love for art led me to doodling in my notebooks which served as an effective tool to keep my fidgety hands occupied. All in all, note-taking saved me from getting into trouble with my teachers at school. As luck would have it, I went on to study architecture and urban design, where note-taking became a very important tool for documentation of built form and urban spaces.
At some point I discovered the power of journaling and went on to fill notebooks with gratitude lists, affirmations and creative visualisations for a better world. Journaling helped me unleash the power of words and notebooks proved to be the perfect tool to reinforce this power repeatedly.
Over time the habit of note-taking has become second nature to me. I seldom leave the home without a sketchbook that doubles as a notebook and a journal. A habit of randomly using the closest notebook available means that content for one subject may be scattered across multiple books often making their contents disjointed and perplexing to others.
Today, as I stare at the collage of notebooks before me, I know I stand at the edge of a rabbit hole, much akin to the one that swallowed Alice into a world of adventures…
I know that with every book I open, I am sure to get sucked into different worlds - intriguing classrooms I have been a part of, remote settlements I have visited and studied, crowded streets of cities I have walked along and fascinating minds that I have met in the journey of life. Most importantly, I know that these books will give me the best insights into my own mind leading me surreptitiously to the right page that I need to refer to at that point.
An unpretentious bunch of papers bound together using glue or thread, can hold multitudes. Notebooks are memory keepers. Notebooks are textbooks. Notebooks are magical portholes in disguise.
Those who have discovered this secret, old-school device will know. For those who haven’t, today is a good day to begin a new friendship with the humble old notebook.
This week
an English professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) who has spent the past two decades studying notebooks, featured my note-taking methods in her newsletter , taking me back to my memories with the notebooks that I have collected over time. I am so grateful to Jillian for her interest in note-taking.
A warm welcome to all new subscribers and love to all my readers. I am so grateful that you are here. Do share your comments and help this reader supported publication reach more people through your likes, shares and subscriptions.
Every piece of my writing is a labour of love. Do support it by buying me a book.
I am you and you are me! It's as if we share the same world! And there's more humans like us who full their life onto pages and paper and scribble away their thoughts and dreams. I loved reading this!
Extremely well written. I never thought that I would see notebooks from so many different perspectives and experiences. Especially not from a single person. I have always thought of notebooks as a utilitarian item simply meant for school or college but today I learned that they can be so much more than that. They can be a source of joy, comfort, or even curiosity. After reading this article I will never look at notebooks the same way again