50 Days of Traveler's Notebook Update + the next experiment | LindseyScribbles

0:00 hey today we're going to talk about my 50-day update in my Travelers notebook system so believe it or not I have made it 50 consecutive days using my traveler's notebooks and as we're starting to kind of approach that 2024 planner season and the trialing of things for next year kind of officially is in full swing for me I thought I would do a little recap on what I've learned these last 50 days the things I liked the things I didn't and what I think I'm going to be experimenting with next overall I would say this has been a good thing for me to kind of get back into consistency I didn't think I realized how overwhelmed I felt moving around but I also kind of started to recognize that I was getting a little bit bored being very consistent too so

0:46 first takeaway is I definitely need a system that allows for a lot of change and there is quite a bit of change that you can do within your traveler's notebook obviously it's a very flexible system you can add inserts and remove and and dictate whatever type of paper you're looking for and things like that but there are certain things particularly with my passport that I was kind of falling out of love with that I think will impact my decisions for my planner system moving forward and next year let's talk about the positives the main positive I really think is just the standard size over the last month and a half I've really fallen in love with the standard size and really fallen out of love with my passport which I was not expecting whatsoever because I've always been a huge fan of the passport and the

1:31 standards always felt kind of a little bit awkward I don't know if it's the paper or just slowly kind of adding personality to to these inserts but the vertical weekly with the MD paper has been great I've really enjoyed adding some micro journaling and pulling out stickers again because I've been slowly shifting away from stickers it seems like this year so it's been fun to kind of add them back into my routine and again Still Loving the Midori MD cream paper in my dear diary portion of my standard setup as well I have two pages left in this insert so I blew through it pretty quickly I think I started this on July 8th is kind of like my first official entry from this current streak and I did have a lot of tip-ins they're happy mail that I could have kept so

2:18 some pages are just dedicated to things like that but I did go through this pretty quickly overall I also enjoyed finding use for the planner pages that is something I don't think I've really done intentionally in any of my other systems this year but using the month at a glance as like a micro habit tracker was nice and I want to carry that forward into whatever I move into next and I use the monthly logs to keep track of when I did journal and what I did Journal about which again liked actually putting these to use but I think moving forward I might do this as more of like a gratitude or affirmation space and in the back I used the blank pages to do sort of like a monthly recap spread and I had a lot of fun doing this type of

3:04 journaling and again a concept I think I want to move forward whether I come back to this next year or later in the year or whatever I want to use next I think this is something that I kind of want to take with me so a lot I learned from my time in the standard size but there are some things that I'm not liking about this in particular I would say it's the dear diary insert what I am noticing and there's probably a workaround but what I'm noticing in here in particular is two things one the type of journaling that I'm doing is not what I'm wanting to do I don't know if it's because it's an undated notebook but I find the minute I reach for this I tend to just sort of

3:49 stream of Consciousness journal and that's all I do in here and I like stream of Consciousness journaling there's nothing wrong with it but for me there's a lot of value and sort of writing about my day and collecting memories and I think I've mentioned this in videos earlier in this year but who I am as a planner has kind of shifted from like a hyper productivity type of person into more of someone who romanticizes logging things memory keeping and exploring art and I definitely felt like I explored the art a lot but the type of journaling I've I did in here just didn't feel very meaningful I like flipping through this to you see the spreads overall but I don't think I'll ever flip back through and reread the contents because I just know a lot of it

4:36 really wasn't super meaningful for me so I don't know if it's because it's undated or maybe because the insert felt temporary because it's a single insert and not something that I'm really likely to keep for years and years and years I just approached my journaling a little bit differently and I tried over the last couple of weeks to really kind of hone in on Journal how you used to in other notebooks and it just always ended up the same so that's really been the main thing that I'm sort of starting to be like okay well maybe I need to make a change if the type of journaling I want to do I just don't it doesn't come naturally to me in this notebook it's a small thing I'm sure I could find a way around that but it's something that I'm noticing and I'm not absolutely in love with when it

5:21 comes to this the second thing and I'll Echo this when I get to the passport is usually I hop out of these notebooks and kind of back and forth quickly enough that once I pass the halfway point of the insert um I'll have switched and this time I was dedicated to working through the second half of the answer and it just irritating to right around the ridge that is that elastic now the further I get into the notebook it is less of a problem and I tried rearranging my notebooks like putting the elastic band through the back of the cover or the front of the cover versus the middle of the insert and trying to get creative that way but anyway I kind of had that in here once I get past what I'm now

6:07 referring to is the honeymoon phase of the first half of an insert it's just been a little bit more challenging to write in and it adds a little bit of resistance for me to pick up that notebook so I'm like uh it's just gonna be kind of awkward or it's not gonna look quite right because we've mentioned this before I'm a bit trash for Aesthetics so if a spread doesn't look nice at the end of it I'm kind of like meh about it at the end of the day but overall I would say really enjoyed standard could see myself going back into this size but ready to try something else to kind of scratch the type of journaling which is a bit more memory keeping focused that I want to be doing right now on the passport side again I think um the main thing that really helped me this time around is I set up a habit

6:53 tracker in here this is from peanuts planner codes the 104 undated yearly bundle and I was literally every morning coming in and coloring in a square for days I stayed in my passport and I think just little things like this especially if you're a habit tracker motivated individual like I am little things like this really help me with consistency so whatever my next challenge is I think setting up a habit tracker I'm a hundred percent going to do I need to play to my strengths more often and I know this about my personality I will do a lot of things out of my comfort zone just for a little check box so this was a good thing for me to add and it definitely helped me with my consistency so over the last 50 days while I think I fell more in love with my standard size I really fell out of love with my passport and just for a handful of reasons

7:40 um one I really like change which is hilarious to say because I don't actually like change in real life but I like change in my plan winners and I am very bored of my annual setup I think on paper this is a really great way for me to keep all of the spreads and information that I want to keep handy throughout the year like on paper and last year this worked out really well for me but I am at the point towards the latter half of the Year where I'm just over this setup I would like a chance to refresh it and I could easily pull out an annual book or an additional insert and kind of pick up and start fresh but there's also something about that that doesn't quite mesh well with my brain so but right now

8:25 I'm really craving just a fresh setup and I think now that I've kind of recognized like yes this is great functionally but I personally just prefer opportunities for more Fresh Starts I've already kind of honed in on next year for me is the year of the bullet Journal I just wasn't sure if I was going to Bullet journal in a notebook or in a traveler's notebook and I think either way I don't necessarily want to set up a annual setup I think I just want to kind of bullet Journal as I go and maybe print out habit trackers on like sticky notes or something that could be easily moved from notebook to notebook so that I have those Fresh Starts completely built into my system versus only in the quarterly side and I

9:11 don't do any sort of quarterly setup in here it's literally just a cover page and then I move directly into my monthly spreads and my weeklies and my daily so there's not a whole lot of setup that changes when it comes to the quarterly insert same complaint that I had in the standard size I hit that halfway Waypoint in my quarterly book and I have tried again looping this through different parts of the insert so front cover back cover just a few pages forward or backward I tried moving this to the front of the book and my annual book to the back I've tried a lot of different things but at the end of the day I just kind of get irritated with the second half of the insert and I don't know if it's just like at that point the pages start to look a little bit Messier or what it is but I

9:57 definitely have a honeymoon period about until this halfway point and then I flip the page and I'm just like immediately immediately now if you've heard the audio clip and I'm just I'm ready for for something else so overall I think it's been really good for me to experiment with this it's been really refreshing to be consistent and I've kind of proven to myself or collected the data on how I want to use a traveler's notebook system this is a heavy Contender for me for 2024 because I have enjoyed this a lot but I'm starting to recognize little things that I think are starting to irritate me I'm trying to not feel pressured to go ahead and place that order I've got another month or two to kind of figure out what I want to do so from here I think we're

10:44 going to move on to my next system experiment trial run for 2024 and see where we want to go um so here's what I'm going to move into next so I think um for the rest of this year I'm gonna bring back the system that I was using in April and May because this is what I use probably the second longest so far this year and that is bullet journaling in a pocket size or Asics list from 1917 journaling and a hominishi Tacho as part of like my daily memory keeping and then having some sort of support notebook for like runoff morning pages and other types of journaling that don't necessarily make sense to put in here when I tried the system earlier this year I was trying to put a hobanichi

11:30 notebook in the back because I did opt for hobonichi Avec this year this is the hobonichi Tetro A6 size by the way and I really enjoyed it while I was using it in fact I think my like 30 day challenge Vlog I'm primarily using these two so if you want to check those out I do have some Vlog content around them but what I am kind of realizing is moving into a pocket bullet Journal it sort of gives me a Minimum three opportunities to redo a whole fresh setup but I did set this up as like an August start portion of my bullet journal and I would imagine this would take me through the month of November before I would run out of pages and then need to set up a new bullet Journal which would line up really

12:16 nicely for me because I actually prefer to start my planners in December it's something that I picked up from using a hobonichi weeks and it just works way better for my lifestyle and the craziest point of the year I just need an extra month to move in so I would probably do the same either way with my bullet Journal whether it's in a passport or in Pocket I'll probably set it up in December and go ahead and move in I did set this up starting in August and I have just kind of updated it on the weekends whenever I feel like it and I'm really enjoying this setup and I really like the opportunity of having a fresh start built in and some of the Habit trackers that I get a little bit irritated when I have to move information from notebook to notebook I went ahead and just put on a printable and Washi taped it down so I can move it from from notebook to notebook so I

13:02 didn't have to spend time moving over any of the data and most of my other habit trackers I don't actually need to see like a Year's worth of data collected so that's something I'm starting to kind of recognize and overall I've just kind of missed the bigger grid size I think I talked about this over on Instagram but I historically lean towards small grid space because I have tiny handwriting but it's been kind of nice being back in a five millimeter grid I feel like things have room to breathe um so that's been nice as well and because things are more spaced out I think it's actually easier for me to find things when I'm looking at a task list and being able to say yep that's an that's a specific task I can kind of zero in on things a little bit easier my eyes don't have to work so hard if that makes any

13:49 sense and I can go either way I like a tiny grid but right now I'm just enjoying a slightly bigger grid um this paper holds up to watercolor really well too and it dries very quickly so that's been a nice thing coming from the Toma River paper inserts that I had in my passport I just had to wait forever for a watercolor to dry so it's been nice kind of being back in this and having that and and right now though part of this appeal is that it's backdated so it looks really clean and fresh and as I mentioned I really like a clean spread so that's part of the appeal right now so that might change as we go but I have been reaching for this for the last few days and really enjoying it again so I'm glad to have this I also love that they're self-contained um sort of the

14:34 the elephant in the room for me when it comes to Travelers notebook is my spending habits I can't resist their branding I don't know what it is but I'm a sucker for it so any kind of resistance I can put between what I'm using and feeling like I gotta catch them all with their limited edition stuff works out pretty well for me and I've mentioned that before in other videos no shame if you have a beautiful collection I'm very envious of you um but just right now with the money habits that I'm trying to create and bring into next year I think this is good for me just to put a little bit of resistance between in my hominichi this is the my manga and eye cover I think it was from 2020. maybe 2021 I don't remember but in here I have my hobonichi Tacho Avec and I

15:22 have been journaling in here off and on I let me grab my one from the first half of the Year this is the one I was using earlier in May and June and I just really enjoyed how I was memory keeping in here I write differently on a dated page than a blank page and I can't explain it but there's something about seeing a dated page and immediately wanting to tell stories related to the day and I enjoy so much flipping back through these I find the Asic size to be pretty sustainable for me to fill out like I was traveling on vacation I was able to fill these out pretty much on a daily basis if I print a photo it's like five minutes if I sit here and just write pen to paper I can do it in about 15. so

16:09 it's easy for me to keep up with as part of my nighttime routine and I absolutely love flipping through these there's something about this that is so satisfying compared to flipping through like a filled in blank notebook for some reason I don't know what it is I really can't explain it's all in my head I'm sure but I just love this and there is a huge part of me that really wants to have this type of Journal completely full again for next year so I think right now this is the type of journaling I want to do this is a space that helps me do that type of journaling with less resistance or less overthinking things so for now I think this is kind of what I'm going to be trialing out for a little while just to see how it goes and I've been dipping my

16:55 toes in here since I think it was like the yeah the 19th and so far I've just really loved all the spreads how they're coming out how I'm journaling and it just it's fun so also tobinichi season so how can I resist but however one thing about this is I Journal a lot I'm the kind of person who thinks on paper I need to like get things out for me to process things like emotions like sometimes I won't realize that I'm I'm hurt or I'm frustrated and I until I write it out and I can start to catalog like oh these these this looks like frustration and it helps me deal with those emotions or communicate those emotions better to people it just sort of depends so I need space to do like brain dumps to word vomit to rant to

17:41 process things like emotions and stuff so I kind of need more space than an A6 day per page unless I'm super busy enjoy writing things a lot more than just this amount of space so I am picking this back up this is just another pocket list drum I would like to maybe move into a bigger notebook next year compared to just having two pocket notebooks but I was halfway through this notebook and I was pretty much using it for this purpose to sort of just like I call it runoff journaling excess journaling whatever it is that I need to do um I was halfway through this notebook so I've just picked this back up to kind of use for that purpose because I otherwise I'm never going to finish the notebook and I'm using my fountain pens in here this paper does behave pretty

18:28 well in my experience with fountain pen and various inks and watercolors and all those types of things it's not quite as smooth and nice as a Midori MD notebook but using it up and I like that it's pocketable if I feel like I need to have this type of journal with me um it's easy to take along as well so anyway it's kind of weird to say that I'm expanding my system but I guess I kind of am because I was going from this which was weekly memory keeping and do your diary journaling and my passport bullet journal to a pocket bullet Journal my memory keeping slash Daily Journal and then a as needed runoff Journal so now we're kind of at a three stack here which is

19:15 I don't know how I feel about it but I definitely want to give it a try because the hobonichi products that I'm looking at for next year don't go on sale until October or November because I think I would go with the English edition for the A6 tattoo which means I've got time to make up my mind so I want to give this a go for at least a month or two like I did with my Travelers notebooks and see which between the two what were the pros over the cons do I want to cherry pick between them and hopefully have a more solid system for 2024 because I have a really crazy year coming up and I'm never going to get it right the first time half the fun is switching my planner system around I think I as a self-proclaimed uh planer Hopper I think I'm always going to do that but I do

20:00 know just with what's on my plate for next year I would like to be a little bit more consistent at least for the first half of the year so I'm putting in the r d in 2023 to hopefully have a smoother 2024. let me know your thoughts um I apologize if you're hoping I would stay in The Travelers notebooks but I am ready to just try something different for a little bit I like trying new things and this is what I think is a good solution for some of the issues that I was having in here and we will see where I land and what I end up ordering for 2024. but if you made it this long thank you so much for listening and for being here and I will talk to you soon foreign