My Pocket Notebook Setup (and How I Actually Use It)

If you’ve ever tried to build a journaling or note-taking habit and found yourself staring at a blank page, wondering where to even begin, the problem probably isn’t you. It’s that most systems ask you to arrive already organised, ready to sort, categorise and decide. And if your brain doesn’t work that way, the whole thing falls apart before it’s started.

My pocket notebook setup came out of realising exactly that. I’m scattered first, clear later. I needed somewhere for thoughts to go before I knew what to do with them, not after.

If you want the full picture of what a pocket notebook is and everything you can do with one, the main post on pocket notebook ideas is a good place to start. But for now, I want to specifically tell you about how I’ve set mine up and why it works the way it does.

Why I started carrying a pocket notebook

I’d been using a system of sorts for a while: Notion for content planning and goals, a journal on my desk, and a business planner that I kept meaning to use to track important things. So, I have all the right tools, in theory.

But I’d noticed that my journaling habit had started to slip. I had started just filling my journal with to-do lists rather than anything meaningful. And, yes, “write in journal” is nearly always on my to-do lists… err, in my journal. I just couldn’t work out what had changed.

I realised that the problem was that none of my journals or planners welcomed the mess. I swear they used to. But every time I opened them, I felt like I needed to write something properly, something that made sense, something that belonged there. Which meant I’d close them again without writing a single word.

What I was missing was a capture layer. Somewhere that didn’t require me to have my thoughts sorted before I wrote them down.

I watched this video from Lilla Björn, who’d carried a pocket notebook for a year and used it as an initial capture system: write things down first, figure out what they mean later, move anything useful somewhere more permanent. It was exactly the opposite of everything I’d been doing recently, which is probably why it clicked immediately.

Choosing the right pocket notebook

I’m an A5 person by nature (actually, A4 if I’m being honest), so the idea of moving to a pocket notebook felt uncomfortable. I went with A6 because anything smaller would have been pointless given how big and messy my handwriting is.

My first choice would have been the Dingbats Wildlife A6, because Dingbats make some of my favourite lined notebooks, but I wasn’t sure enough about A6 to justify the cost straight away.

So I started with a Feela A6 hardcover 3-pack, which turned out to be a genuinely good shout for a first pocket notebook setup. Under $10 for three notebooks, each with 112 pages, two ribbons, a back pocket, an elastic closure, and a pen loop.

The paper in these notebooks is thinner than I’m used to (I normally go for 150gsm), and I do get some ghosting with most pens because I press hard when I write, but no bleed-through, which is the main thing.

I go through roughly one notebook a month, so the price point works well for now.

My other pocket notebook supplies

One thing I wanted from my pocket notebook setup was for everything to live together in one place, so I picked up an EASTHILL Large Capacity Pencil Case that fits the notebook itself alongside all the supplies. It was under $10 and does exactly what I needed.

I kept the supplies deliberately simple:

• A Pritt Stick, because you never know when you might want to stick things in, and it’s the best glue stick going
• One Mildliner Dual Brush highlighter, swapped out for a different colour when I want a change
• One pen from the Doodler’z Gel Stick Creative Collection, again swapped out as the mood takes me
• Three Pilot FriXion Clicker pens, which technically erase but don’t actually erase for me (luckily, this wasn’t what I got them for). I use them because they never skip, which matters when you’re jotting something down quickly
• Drop-shaped paperclips because they’re light and don’t add bulk to the pages
• A small pad of Post-it notes, of course
• A page tab sheet that doubles as a ruler
• A few bits from an ephemera pack, just because
• A corner cutter for marking processed pages (more on this in a moment)

I also keep a stamp-shaped hole punch at home for when I want to stick something into the notebook without adding unnecessary weight, like a small clipping or a pattern that caught my eye.

What goes inside my pocket notebook

This is where the pocket notebook setup gets a bit more considered, and where I think it makes a real difference.

Inside the front cover, I’ve stuck a typed migration key. It’s a small reference list of where different types of notes go once I’ve decided they’re worth keeping. Mine looks like this:

• SB (Second Brain, Notion) = reference and knowledge worth keeping
• CP (Car Park, Notion) = tasks, reminders, things to think about
• EX (Exploration, journal) = ideas worth developing
• Cal (Calendar) = anything with a date
• BU (Business Updates, planner) = anything relevant to content or goals
• Man (Manifestation, journal) = anything connected to what I’m working toward

I typed this rather than writing it because it won’t change much, so I can just print a fresh one for each new notebook instead of rewriting it every time.

Inside the back cover, I’ve stuck a mini vertical calendar for the current month and the next one. It’s too small for any real detail; it’s just there for life at a glance. Once you’ve made one, setting up the next is just a case of changing the days of the week.

How my pocket notebook setup actually works

During the day, I write things down as they come up. No system, no categories, no deciding where something belongs. A thought, a question, something I want to look up, something I heard, something that seemed interesting. It all goes in.

Every evening (or every few days at least), I go back through what I’ve written and mark anything worth keeping with the relevant code from my migration key.

Then I move things across to wherever they belong. Some things go into Notion. Some go into my journal. Some go onto the calendar. Some get left because they are not important (i.e. “why do we assume crackers must go with cheese?”), And that’s fine too.

Once I’ve moved everything off a page, I cut the corner off with the corner cutter, so I know at a glance which pages I don’t need to read again.

The whole point is that capturing and processing are two separate steps, and the pocket notebook only has to handle the first. It doesn’t need to be tidy or organised or make complete sense. It just needs to catch things before they disappear.

Where to go next with your pocket notebook setup

If you’re thinking about what to actually write in yours, 15 Things to Write in a Pocket Notebook is worth a read. And if you want to think about how your pages could look, there are some good ideas in the post on pocket notebook layouts. Or if you really want to get fancy, check out these ideas to customise your notebooks.

The best place to start, though, if you haven’t already, is just getting a notebook and carrying it around for a week. You can refine the pocket notebook setup as you go. The important thing is having somewhere for things to land.

Full credit for me starting a pocket notebook goes to Lilla Björn’s YouTube channel for introducing me to pocket notebooks. If you’re interested, I highly recommend watching this video.