Friday, March 7, 2025

A Life Remembered in Journal Pages

From nextavenue.org

By Dan Gjelten

For a 73-year-old man who is experiencing memory loss, his many journals are keeping his story alive 

"We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded … our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist.." ("Writing Down the Bones," Natalie Goldberg)

I met my friend Chris Thiem in 1981 at a writers' retreat in northern Minnesota. The retreat was led by Natalie Goldberg and it was called "Writing Down the Bones" which a few years later became the title of Goldberg's bestselling book on writing. Our little group of writers were the original Bones. Goldberg made a big impression on us, and we stayed together as a writing group for many years.

An excerpt from a journal entry. Next Avenue, dementia, journaling
                                                                     One of Chris Thiem's journal entries  |  Credit: Dan Gjelten

Chris was a self-described "underpaid teacher of English and a coach in a small Catholic high school" in Mankato, Minnesota. He has lived his entire life in Mankato with the notable exception of his four years at the University of Montana, which he attended on a track scholarship. He was a talented runner and stayed fit his entire life until joints began to deteriorate and limit his activities in his sixties.

I often envied Chris over the years — my life included year-round work and child raising in St. Paul, and I would observe him as he'd take solo road trips in the summers out west (always west – his time in Montana left a permanent love of that landscape) in a pickup that served as a place to sleep overnight. He went there to look for birds and take photos and run the hills. I sometimes wanted to be him - handsome, lean, fast, free. I would receive postcards from his travels with a few lines describing what he was seeing and doing.

"Today I did something out of character. At Nature Conservancy land along the Yampa River, I followed an overgrown path that eventually dead-ended at a rocky point that divided the flow of the Yampa. I was hot and frustrated in my birding. To make the best of it, I stripped off my clothes and slipped into the numbing cold pull of the Yampa. It wasn't until I had my clothes off that I saw the Spotted Sandpiper working a sandbar upriver from me."

Chris and I have stayed in touch over the decades, corresponding via cards and letters (his photos became postcards) — all of which I've kept — and with regular face-to-face visits. Now at 74, Chris is starting to experience memory loss. That isn't unusual, of course. But my friend is unusual — in many ways, he is both an average guy and a remarkable artist, though he'd only agree with the first part of that description. 

Two men smiling together. Next Avenue, dementia, journaling
                                                                Chris Thiem and writer Dan Gjelten   |  Credit: Lisa Burke

Over the last 25 years, Chris has created ("obsessively" he says) journals which contain his daily writing, quotes from his reading, his photos (processed and printed in his basement darkroom), snippets of letters he's received, his bird lists, keepsakes like diagrams his doctor father made by hand while studying in medical school, his mother's recipe for rice and cheese casserole, a 1974 Track and Field News cover with record setting distance runner Steve Prefontaine, poems, postcards, a cut out from a map of Montana and so much more — the real things of his life — all carefully and artisanally assembled.

Life in 3 Ring Binders

The 3 ring binders (there are 24 of them) are now a physical manifestation of his memories, not just of the last 25 years, but of his entire life. His handwritten words cover the page from edge to edge, sometimes upside down or circling the images. Occasionally, his handwriting changes to a special font emphasizing certain words.

His daily life always, it seems, includes reading (especially poetry) and thoughts of his wife, Patti.

"For the time being, I am reading Helen Vendler's careful explication of selected poems by Emily Dickinson. No predicting the direction my reading will take. Trying also to understand [Robert] Bly's ghazals with, as yet, no definition of what a ghazal is. Suppose I could just enjoy the strangeness of each stanza of three lines. And then, of course, take those 5 pills she brings me in the morning while I sit beneath this lamp and read. Is it true that my life depends on this brief morning ritual? Come to my aid, Emily and Robert!"

And birds! Always lists of birds, an interest that apparently began in his childhood, evidenced by the insertion of an early drawing into the book.

"Here's the deal. I love my Field Guides (Second Edition). I love how desert sun, shining hard and flat through the windshields of three different pick-up trucks have bleached the cover bird paintings fading them to proof of long use. I love the slow curling and peeling away of the clear-plastic cover lamination. I love Maria Gray's signature on the cover's inside, a woman I never met, now dead. But the number of species has changed. The Solitary Vireo is now three species, and I suppose I must eventually switch to the Third Edition …"

Chris started the journals in 1999. I asked Chris recently why he started this decades long project, and he told me "I just wanted to make a book … for myself." At the writers' retreat where we met, we both got in the habit of writing in spiral notebooks — "I was searching - you, too," he said. And the writing "kept us more or less truthful…I wonder if you should be writing about both of us. How friendships happen and last for years. Even, I think, about our weaknesses, what we love, what we didn't get done, why I drifted west in summers, why birds! … maybe it just can't be explained."

An excerpt from a journal entry. Next Avenue, dementia, journaling
Credit: Dan Gjelten

He had no intention that anyone would see his books. (Patti and I have, but few others — until now.) For the record, I have Chris' permission to write this and have tried not to include anything too personal – and they are extraordinarily personal, a record of his life, including his rich inner life.

"Oh! Memory! There's no telling how much I can forget to do…

Chris is clearly proud of the books, though he will often say "they are nothing special" and "no one would be interested in this" and "they are just a way for me to remember, especially the people I have known." He has many deep relationships with friends and old classmates, and many former students continue to write to him and address him as "Mr. Thiem." Even if he says the books are "nothing special," he has taken great care in creating and caring for them. Each notebook is in an archival box, and they are shelved in his office, which is also home to his library of novels and poetry.

He and Patti have recently moved to a different house in Mankato and the desk where he had worked on his journals for years did not fit through the door in the new house, a development he described as "crushing." He told me several times that Patti is getting him a new desk.

An excerpt from a journal entry. Next Avenue, dementia, journaling
Credit: Dan Gjelten

My admiration of his journals leads me to ask what will become of them, as Chris and Patti have no children. "I can imagine they'll be dumped in a fire somewhere," he says - facetiously, I'm sure. I told him the pages could be digitized and preserved — "that's not me" he replies, a man who does not use a computer or a smart phone.

To me, the collection is authentic folk art, creatively and intimately representing a life that has been both outwardly typical but also rich, artistic and literary, which is to say, extraordinary. Chris has lived a life that has been full of thoughtful encounters with nature, art and his students. His journals uniquely document his encounters with words, images, music, friends and the natural world.

Natalie Goldberg taught us that "writers live twice. They go along with their regular life … but there is another part of them that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again … "

Now Chris sometimes sits in the evening, maybe "sipping something," listening to Van Morrison singing "Madame George" ("the love that loves to love/say goodbye, goodbye"), paging through his journals and reviewing the faces and the landscapes of his past — clear and beautiful, solid and permanent in those pages even as they fade in his memory.  

https://www.nextavenue.org/the-power-of-journal-pages/

Thursday, March 6, 2025

What Is a Junk Journal? Learn How To Get Creative With Everyday “Junk”

From mymodernmet.com

By Sara Barnes 

There are some things, like that receipt for your bagel, many of us classify as “junk.” A scrap of paper or a clothing tag serves a purpose but ultimately finds itself in the garbage or the recycling bin. But there's another place for them: your junk journal.  A junk journal is exactly what it sounds like: a book filled with “junk,” or small paper items that you’d otherwise discard. Think ticket stubs, food labels, random stickers—anything can be fodder for a junk journal.

Junk journaling offers a creative way to recycle scraps and collage everyday found materials, turning them into one-of-a-kind works of art. By finding the beauty in things others might discard, you’re celebrating imperfection and finding a new use for contemporary ephemera. There’s an added benefit of sustainability; by joining all these items in your junk journal, you’re repurposing them and reducing waste.

Let’s open the book on junk journaling including common materials to use and how to make your own.

What is a junk journal, and why keep one?

Junk Journal

Photo: Adventure 22 by Bill Smith is licensed under CC BY 4.0


Junk journaling is a type of journaling in which the pages comprise things you’d normally recycle or throw away. It's been around for a while, but junk journaling has had renewed interest within the last couple of years thanks to social media users on TikTok and Instagram. As we continue to examine our relationship with consumerism and waste, junk journaling is a way to keep things out of landfills and be more conscious of our consumption.

Flip through the page of a junk journal and you’ll find a variety of ephemera. This includes receipts from food takeout, ticket stubs from a concert, the sticker on a banana, and cut-outs from that catalogue in the mail. You create the composition in a book—a notebook, Moleskine, or an old novel you got from the thrift store—and the possibilities are endless.

Junk Journal Spread

Photo: Elena Mozhvilo


So, why keep a junk journal?

Junk journals are beneficial for many reasons. First and foremost, they’re a fun and accessible creative activity. You don’t need a lot of materials or have to be a master artist to start or keep a junk journal. Just grab some scissors, glue sticks, and washi tape to cut, arrange, and paste your “junk” on the pages. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Another reason that junk journals are great is that they're a sustainable practice. Because you're using materials typically thrown away, it saves them from entering a landfill. These small items become part of a larger creative endeavour with an eco-friendly twist. A junk journal becomes an unconventional memory book. It traces your everyday existence and highlights how creative it can be when presented in this context.

 

Common Materials You’ll Find in a Junk Journal

You can use any material you like in a junk journal. The name evokes the feeling of “anything goes,” meaning you don’t have to be too precious about what goes into your book. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything you’d normally discard—it’s now going into your junk journal!

Look for things like newspapers, magazines, and old books. Ephemera from everyday life can make up the bulk of what goes on your pages. Consider postcards, tickets, maps, receipts, stickers, and clothing tags as all fair game. And don't be afraid to think beyond that. If you’re a crafter, fabric scraps, ribbons, lace or thread cuttings will add fuzzy texture to your pages. Paint or stamps are also a possibility. Don't be afraid to try something new and remember to just have fun with it.

 

How to Use Your Journal

Art Journal

Photo: Orange Smashbook 2012 by Marlenn Arambula is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0


A junk journal is personal, and how you use it is ultimately up to you. Creativity is part of the fun. What are your goals for this type of project? Are you using it for memory keeping? A less fussy alternative to conventional scrapbooking? As you gather your materials, consider your “why.” This will inform what you include in your book and influence how you design each spread.

Here are some ways to use your junk journal:

Creative journaling. Express your thoughts and feelings about your day-to-day life through these pages, using only the materials you’ve gathered.

Mixed media art and collage. Mix and match your materials to create artistic compositions and flex your creative muscles. Each composition is an opportunity for another work of art.

Memory keeping and alternative scrapbooking. Use your junk journal to remember that great concert you went to or a receipt from a fancy dinner you won’t soon forget.

Gratitude and reflection journals. One science-backed way to be happier is to keep a gratitude journal. Your junk journal could be used to record daily gratitude or reflect on your life.

Writing prompts and storytelling. Alternatively, you could use the ephemera you place in your junk journal as inspiration for writing. It’s a space to write based on prompts or tell a story—fact or fiction.

Manifesting. Think of the pages as a bunch of vision boards. What do you want your future life to look like? (This is a great use for the catalogues and magazines you get in the mail.)

How to Make a Junk Journal

Journaling

Photo: Kristyna Squared.one


You’ve got an idea of why you’re starting a junk journal. Now, it’s time to put the idea into action.

Follow these steps to work on your junk journal:

  1. Gather your materials. Chances are you’ve already started to collect everything you need. One important thing to remember is that the spirit of junk journaling is to use things you have on hand. This type of scrapbook is about sustainability and keeping things out of the garbage by reimagining their function in our lives. Don’t go out and buy all the fancy papers or little embellishments you’d normally see with scrapbooking—this is about challenging yourself with what you have!
  2. Find a journal or book. An old book can become a junk journal. A sketchbook can transform into one, too. Or, you can plug your papers into a hard-bound notebook. Opt for a book you no longer need before you go shopping. If you want to make a unique cover, you can collage vintage paper or sheet music. Some people even like to use an old book cover or paper bags as a base.
  3. Start assembling your pages. You’ve got the materials and the book. Now it’s time to start journaling! Begin by placing your ephemera where you’d like it to go. You will need scissors and a glue stick for this. Before you put glue to paper, take some time to play with the arrangements in your composition. See how things look when you layer them on top of each other, or how one element looks next to another. Use paint, washi tape, and fabric to create a variety of textures on the page and add visual interest. You can even make pockets using envelopes or tags to hold some of your trinkets. You can also use writing or pen drawings to unify a composition and record your memories of a day or event.
  4. Don’t forget to date your journal. Write the dates when you started your journal and when it ended. That way, if you have more than one book, you’ll know what volume you’re looking at when you refer to it later.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the point of junk journals?

Junk journaling offers a creative way to recycle scraps and collage everyday materials, turning them into one-of-a-kind works of art. It's an excellent way to tap into your artistic side and let your creativity flow.

 

What's the difference between a junk journal and a scrapbook?

A junk journal is typically more random in its design and pages because the items are sourced from everyday ephemera, from old paper to buttons to ticket stubs or postcards. A scrapbook, by contrast, has layouts that might tie to one theme and utilize the same papers or store-bought embellishments.

 

What do you write in your junk journal?

You can write anything! You don't have to share it with anyone. Use it as a way to record an event or express your feelings.

https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-a-junk-journal/

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

This 4,500-Year-Old "Diary" Could Hold The Secret To Who Built The Pyramids

From msn.com/en-us

By Jason Dookeran

Egypt's pyramids hide some strange facts and mysteries, and the biggest among them is who built the pyramids. While aliens and supernatural forces have been suggested by fringe theorists, archaeological evidence has always pointed to ancient Egyptians themselves as the masterminds and laborers behind these colossal monuments.

Now, a remarkable 4,500-year-old document is providing unprecedented first-hand insight into the actual construction process of the Great Pyramid of Giza. These pyramids are among the oldest in the world, and visitors can still see them today.

Discovered in 2013 at a remote harbour site on Egypt's Red Sea coast, the "Diary of Merer" (sometimes called the "Red Sea Scrolls") is the oldest known papyrus with text ever found. Written by a middle-ranking inspector named Merer, this ancient logbook chronicles several months of work transporting limestone from quarries to the Great Pyramid of Khufu during the final years of the pharaoh's reign.

What does this remarkable document tell us about the people and the culture of the time? Let's examine it closer.

The Remarkable Discovery At Wadi Al-Jarf

While the Great Pyramid is one of the largest pyramids in the world, its construction area spanned quite a distance as well. In 2013, a team of French archaeologists led by Pierre Tallet made an extraordinary find while excavating at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient harbour on Egypt's Red Sea coast.

Hidden for thousands of years, sealed in artificial caves that once served as boat storage, they uncovered entire rolls of papyrus – some several feet long and still remarkably intact. These weren't just any ancient documents; they were the oldest known papyri with written text, dating back approximately 4,500 years to the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt.

The "diary" is actually an incomplete record of loose papyrus sheets. However, the information in the diary is still relevant.

The Papyrus Is A Record Of Egyptian Pyramid Workers' Experiences

Not an official recorded history vetted by the Pharaoh

What makes this discovery especially significant in determining who built the pyramids is that these documents were written by men who directly participated in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. The information inside could support some of the theories on how the Great Pyramid was built.

The Great Pyramid is also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops. It's the only pyramid built by ancient Egyptians to demonstrate air shafts in its construction.

The most complete and informative of these papyri contains the logbook of an official named Merer, who led a crew of approximately 200 men tasked with transporting limestone blocks from the quarries of Tura to the construction site at Giza.

Pyramid Of Giza Construction Facts

Stone Block Size

70–80 tons

Quarry Location

Tura, two days from Giza by boat

Monthly Quota

Around 200 blocks

.

The Man Who Oversaw The Great Pyramid

Ankhhaf: The royal overseer was revealed by ancient papyri

Does the papyrus help us with any of the Ancient Egyptian mysteries that are still unsolved? Well, it just might. Perhaps the most significant revelation from the Diary of Merer is the identification of a key figure who supervised the construction of the Great Pyramid.

The papyri mention that Merer reported to "the noble Ankh-haf," who is described as overseeing operations at "Ro-She Khufu" (likely meaning "the entrance to the pool of Khufu"). This area served as headquarters for the pyramid's construction, sort of like a gathering area where they would have their instructions handed out.



This reference to Ankh-haf in the old papyrus is ground-breaking because it provides the first definitive evidence of who was managing aspects of the pyramid construction. Moreover, Ankh-haf was not just any old overseer; he carried a lot of weight in the royal family.

Ankh-haf was Khufu's half-brother and a high-ranking vizier, and his involvement suggests that the pharaoh entrusted the supervision of his monumental tomb to someone within his inner circle, demonstrating the project's extreme importance to the royal family. After all, with something as important as one's eternal soul, who better to oversee the construction than a close family member?

Pyramid of Giza Construction Timeline & Size

Completion

Between 2560 B.C. and 2540 B.C.

Time to Build

23 Years

Tallest Pyramid at that Time

450 feet tall


Was Ankh-Haf A Real Person?

There's more evidence than just the papyrus

Archaeological evidence beyond the papyri supports Ankh-haf's significance. A limestone bust of Ankhhaf, discovered in his tomb at Giza and now housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, is considered one of the finest portraits from Ancient Egypt. The exceptional quality of this sculpture further indicates his elevated status within Khufu's court.

The bust's realistic style, departing from the more idealized royal portraits of the period, suggests a powerful individual confident in his authority and legacy. The diary doesn't just answer questions about who built the pyramids at the labour level—it provides crucial insight into the organizational hierarchy that made such monumental construction possible.

Ancient Egyptians believed that artistic representation could capture someone's soul or "ka," so they had to be done a certain way or risk stealing too much of the person's soul.

What Does The Diary Of Merer Do For History?

How ancient papyri changed our understanding of an ancient wonder

The discovery of Merer's diary represents one of the most significant breakthroughs in Egyptology this century, providing concrete answers to age-old questions about who built the pyramids. For the first time, we have contemporaneous written records from the actual period of pyramid construction, offering a window into the organizational systems, engineering methods, and daily operations that made these monumental structures possible.

Perhaps most importantly, the Diary of Merer helps dispel popular misconceptions about pyramid construction. Rather than the product of slave labour or otherworldly intervention, the Great Pyramid emerges as the achievement of skilled Egyptian workers using ingenious but entirely human methods. So no, it wasn't, and still isn't, aliens.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/society-culture-and-history/history/this-4-500-year-old-diary-could-hold-the-secret-to-who-built-the-pyramids/ar-AA1A806G?ocid=BingNewsVerp&apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1 

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

The Power of the Notebook — The History and Practice of Thinking on Paper

From artofmanliness.com/living

(Extract from podcast)

Brett McKay: ... Today in the show, Roland Allen traces the fascinating history of notebooks and how they went from a business technology for accounting to a creative technology for artists. We talk about how famous figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Theodore Roosevelt used notebooks, the different forms notebooks have taken from the Italian Zibaldone to the Friendship Book to the modern Bullet Journal, and why keeping a personal diary has fallen out of favour. Along the way, we discuss ways you can fruitfully use notebooks today and why, even in our digital age, they remain an irreplaceable tool for thinking and creativity. After the show’s over, check out our show notes @aom.is/notebook. All right, Roland Allen, welcome to the show.

Roland Allen: Hi. It’s nice to be here, Brett. Thank you. 


Brett McKay: ...So when did diary keeping, the way we know it today, is the sort of self reflective notebook. When did that come to be a thing?

Roland Allen: Well, this is England’s moment to shine. So for most of the story, England is this terrible backwater inhabited by thugs, very poor education and muddy roads and all that. But for some reason, around the year 1600, in England, they do invent the diary, the daily diary as we know it. We don’t really know why. Various theories out there, but I’m not convinced by any of them. I can’t think of any explanation myself. But by the year 1600, it was definitely a fashion which, for instance, people in plays could refer to. So there’s a play by Ben Jonson from 1604 in which one of his characters writes a diary and people take the piss out of him for it, and he’s very humiliated. And everyone’s familiar with that. I think the idea that some stranger reading your diary is a terrible humiliation. So by then, by 1600, people were keeping diaries. We know that, but where it came from, we have no idea.

Brett McKay: And you talk about. They kind of went out of style in the 1940s. What do you think was going on there?

Roland Allen: I think time, actually the mass media comes along. Imagine 120 years ago. Imagine in 1900, you don’t have radio, you don’t have any Internet, you don’t have the movies, don’t have any tv. What do you do in the evenings? You read. Okay. You chat, you talk, you sing, you play instruments. But you’ve just got quite a lot of time, particularly in the Northern hemisphere with long, cold winters when it’s dark. You know, diary keeping is a good way to fill that time. And then over the 20th century, you have more and more distractions. You have the cinema, you have the radio. You then have the tv, and then you have the Internet. And every time, it chips away at people’s evenings, essentially. So it became harder and harder, I think, to find the time just to sit down and think, okay, I’ll think about what I did today for half an hour. And I find it difficult to carve out the time.

Brett McKay: No, I agree. And something else you point out in the book is that keeping a diary has declined in the west because we live in a peaceful time. And you can see that in the 19th and 20th centuries, it was during times of war that sales of diaries or journals would spike.

Roland Allen: Yeah. And this is, I’m sure, true to this day. Whenever there is some upsetting, traumatic event, your world turns upside down. People start keeping diaries, which is why teenagers keep diaries, because their lives are in turmoil automatically because of hormone poisoning, as someone said to me. So teenagers keep diaries and people in war zones keep diaries for the same reason. And I think anywhere you’ll see it now, I’m sure in Ukraine, for instance, there’ll be a lot of people keeping diaries who didn’t before.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I’ve seen that in my own life. I was a big journal keeper in high school and then the early part of young adulthood, and then I remember. And if I look back at what I wrote, it was a lot of the. Just ruminating over, oh, here’s this problem, here’s this big decision I got to make. I’m feeling anxious about test scores if I’m going to get a job. And then I remember I kind of reached this point in my 30s career established, had a house, kids. I just didn’t really have the itch to write in a journal anymore. And I, I stopped doing it. But I’ll notice whenever I have a problem going on in my life, I will bust out the journal to write.

Roland Allen: Very healthy habit. Really healthy habit. Yeah.

Brett McKay: Yeah. When you talk about this. There’s research that backs this up of. It’s called expressive writing, where you just write, kind of stream of conscious what’s going on in your thoughts and your emotions.

Roland Allen: Yeah. And this, I think, was the single most surprising thing I came across in the whole project. You know, three year project, whatever it was, that writing your emotions down on the page then helps your body heal from physical wounds because it reduces the levels of stress in your body so much that your body is able to recover from, for instance, an operation or an injury or a burn more quickly simply if you write down your emotional trauma. And this is now they’ve researched it and researched it and researched it, tested it, all kinds of experiments. It holds up completely. And this blows my mind every time. If you go for a cancer biopsy, you will heal more quickly if you have written your diary beforehand. It’s absolutely baffling to me how powerful it is.

Brett McKay: Yeah. You talked to the researcher, James Pennebaker, who sort of the father of expressive writing.

Roland Allen: Yeah.

Brett McKay: And I think one of the things he noted too, is that in order to make expressive writing effective, you don’t have to do it all the time. Like you don’t have to journal every day to get the benefits, basically. So just do it when you feel like you need to do it.

Roland Allen: Exactly. And when I asked him about that I said to him, do you ever keep a journal? He said, yeah, yeah, when I’m feeling low or when I’ve got something to think about some problem. And I said, do you keep it all the time? He just laughed. He said, no, why would I do that? I’m fine.

Brett McKay: He also has some advice on how to get the most out of it. I think one problem that people run into, I’ve run into this problem when I’ve kept a journal, when I’m trying to sort through problems, is I end up doing a lot of ruminating, just bellyaching. And it’s not very productive because I’m always asking, why is this happening? And why that one bit of advice? Instead of asking why in your journal, ask how and what? Because that’ll give you better, more concrete answers.

Roland Allen: Interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Brett McKay: Yeah. Because it’s often hard to pinpoint why something happened. And then also what writing does in general is it forces you because it’s very logical and linear. You have to call in your prefrontal cortex. So it calms you down if you’re really emotional. So it gets you to think more clearly and turns your emotions into actual thoughts.

Roland Allen: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Brett McKay: You have this fun chapter on bullet journaling and I’m sure our listeners, if they’ve been on Instagram, they’ve seen pictures of people’s really cool looking bullet journals. Tell us about the history of bullet journaling. When did that get started?

Roland Allen: So I guess people have been keeping lists obviously, and checking them off since they were able to write anything down. Ryder Carroll, however, sort of taken the list and turned it into a kind of, I wouldn’t say art form, but a very sophisticated way of organizing your thoughts and feelings. And the reason he felt driven to do this was because he had very pronounced ADHD, which made school life for him impossibly difficult. He couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t focus, he couldn’t get anything done. He was constantly being shouted at by his teachers, et cetera. And school was miserable for him until, I think at college, I want to say he started just writing things down in lists in bullet pointed lists. And he did it with everything. And this kind of had a transformative effect on how he was able to approach his day because it helped him to focus.

It helped him break big, unmanageable tasks down into small, actionable little things and therefore complete things. And he went from being this sort of constant headache for his teachers and his parents to being super, super productive, very entrepreneurial. I’ve got to say, he’s a lovely guy anyway, but he’s also incredibly productive and gets a lot done with his time in a really interesting way. And he invented the Bullet Journal thing, which is essentially a really ingenious way of creating lists that organize your thoughts and organize your day. And it took off. He wrote a couple of books and has thousands of hundreds of thousands probably of people who have gotten his little method now and use it to organize their lives and benefit from it.

Brett McKay: What I think is interesting about the Bullet Journal is the visual aspect of it. Whenever you look at them, there’s lists. People just kind of keep it to a list. But sometimes people get really fancy and they add in little pictures and drawings and they kind of look like Zibaldonis sometimes when you look at the pages.

Roland Allen: Yeah. And again, the feeling of making something with your hands, I think, is really powerful. So every time you fill up a page of a notebook like that and tick everything off and you can look back and think, yeah, I’ve really accomplished something.

Brett McKay: Have you experimented with bullet journaling in your notebooking?

Roland Allen: Not formally, but all of my notebooks are full of lists.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Roland Allen: Full of lists. So I’m a great believer in lists and therefore I’m a kind of bullet journaler. But I never had the ADHD type issues, which Ryder did.

Brett McKay: So after your deep dive into the history of the notebook, what do you think is the future of the notebook?

Roland Allen: I don’t think it’s going to go away. I think a conversation I often have is people sort of waving their iPads and saying, oh, aren’t these things going to take over? But what we’re seeing, I think, is a reaction to it. When people like you, you’re saying that Evernote or whatever doesn’t seem to work for you as well as a commonplace book does. So you’re going back to keeping a commonplace book or a written notebook. That’s quite a common experience. People are realizing now, certainly the scientists all know, the psychologists all know, that writing by hand is better in terms of learning and it’s better in terms of thinking things through than typing all the time. So I don’t think that notebooks are going to go away anytime soon. People are always experimenting as well, with these clever kinds of half notebook, half iPad things, the remarkable tablet, things like that. And they have their place, I think, particularly in the office. But I don’t see the next Leonardo da Vinci using a notable tablet.

Brett McKay: How do you combine your use of an analogue notebook with digital tools?

Roland Allen: I try and go through a handwritten phase with every project. I mean, not when I’m bashing out emails for work, because I have a day job as well, but When I’m doing anything creative for work or anything kind of strategic or trying to do any kind of deep thought, then I pick up a pencil first rather than go straight to typing. And then when it’s my own creative work, anything I’m writing, I’m writing another book at the moment and thinking about the book after that. It’s all in notebooks to begin, and they’re full of spidergrams and little charts and graphs and lists and notes from what I’m reading. And I’ve become more organized over time with that. So now I keep a notebook, basically, or a series of notebooks for every chapter I’m working on. Then my notes are pretty organized, which they certainly weren’t six years ago when I started writing about notebooks. My notes from then that time are really haphazard, but now they’re very organized.

Brett McKay: Do you refer back to your notebooks from old projects at all?

Roland Allen: Ha! That’s interesting. Yeah, I did. I had a quick flick through the notebook ones once fairly recently, and they were just horrible. It was so like the ones I use, the ones I make now are so much better organized. And it’s interesting that I sort of really educated myself on the journey and I found so many examples of really good note taking which I could essentially copy. Yeah. So my old notebooks, my old writing notebooks are pretty horrible. The ones I make at the moment now I like a lot. I’m sure I’m going to hold on to them for a long time.

Brett McKay: Well, Roland, it’s been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Roland Allen: Well, the book is out in the States. It’s published by Biblioasis, who are a fine Canadian independent publisher. And it’s available everywhere. Your Barnes and Noble or your local independent bookstore, or even online if you’ve got no other choice. But yeah, so seek it out. The Notebook by me, Roland Allen. I’d be really grateful.

Brett McKay: And when you pick up the book at the Barnes and Noble, you got to check out the moleskin section. Get yourself a moleskin too, while you’re at it.

Roland Allen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Brett McKay: Roland, it’s been a great conversation. Thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Roland Allen: Thanks very much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Brett McKay: My guest here is Roland Allen. He’s the author of the book The Notebook, A History of Thinking on Paper. It’s available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website, roland-allen.com also check out our show notes @aom.is/notebook. You can find our links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM podcast. Make sure to check out our website @artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives. And check out our new newsletter. It’s called Dying Breed. You can sign up @dyingbreed.net It’s a great way to support the show. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time’s Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to AoM podcast but to put what you’ve heard into action.

https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/podcast-1057-the-power-of-the-notebook-the-history-and-practice-of-thinking-on-paper/