I recently started carrying around a pen and small pocket notebook for notes to remember, grocery lists, and rough ideas. I've always liked the idea of carrying a pocket notebook for this purpose, but I have a problem: if a notebook is special in any way, its finite-ness makes me think about whether writing something down is "worth it". Paper I use has to be disposable and effectively infinite (I use a lot of post-its, too).

I stumbled onto a nice way to make a small notebook from a couple pieces of regular paper which I'd like to share. Because the notebook is DIY and unlimited, I find myself willing to write down anything. I also think it looks quirky and fun. Sometimes I'll sketch something on the cover, something indicating where in the year we are.

See also hipster PDA.

Materials

  • Paper
  • Scisscors
  • Stapler

I make my notebook out of two sheets of engineering computation paper. It has a nice green tint and is graph-ruled on the back so that it shows through lightly to the front. I got hooked on the stuff back in college. I use two sheets (giving a notebook of ~30 pages). 1–5 sheets should work fine.

Instructions

Take your sheets of paper (1), fold them in half and cut them with scissors (2), and stack them up (3). Do this twice (4–6). Fold the resulting stack in half (8), turn over and staple twice (9).

Visual instructions for making my notebooks

The result should look like this:

The finished notebook

Because the engineering paper is lined on the back, each two-page spread has a heavy-lined section and a light-lined section (except the middle one, which has just the light lines).