How to Process Your Everyday Ideas Using a Notebook

The Everyday Notebook isn’t pretty, but it’s just about perfect.

I love notebooks. Love. Notebooks.

Real paper notebooks of all kinds. Pretty ones that cost a small fortune. Plain old spiral-bound ones. Hipster ones that have smooth paper I can’t stop rubbing my fingers against. It doesn’t matter. I love all of them.

There’s one notebook that I love more than all of the others, though. My notebook. My Everyday Notebook. It’s the one notebook that I use all year (usually one lasts me all year.)

Every year I think I’m going to try a different one and every year, I don’t. I get this one, like I have for the last four years. It has 300 pages (600 sheets), which is big enough to be substantial and not too big to actually use.

I carry it around with me, when I’m on top of my game. I leave it in my office for three days during a snow storm when I’m not. As time has gone on, I’ve gotten better and better at using my Everyday Notebook efficiently (and actually every day) and it’s gotten better at making my life happen.

What Exactly Is an Everyday Notebook?

At its core, it’s a brain dump. Or, I suppose, it’s like my brain outside my body.

I keep every possible kind of note in my notebook. Typical entries include:

• Notes during phone calls or meetings.
• Notes during classes or conferences.
• Recipes or other instructions.
• Grocery lists. (Or other kinds of shopping lists.)
• To do lists.
• Lists of ideas.
• Lists of solutions to problems.
• Lists of next steps.
• Handwritten scenes for my work-in-progress novel.
• Blog post ideas.
• Plans for the upcoming day/week/month.
• Plans for — just about anything you can imagine.
• Notes on whatever I’m reading or watching.
• Observations.
• Quotes.
• Research notes.
• Notes for any current project.

But that’s only half of the equation.

Once you’ve got all of your ideas and notes and information out of your brain and into your notebook, it needs to be processed.

Actually, you’ve started to process it already, right? Just the act of writing it down starts your brain working on it. Sometimes, that’s enough for me. In fact, often it is. All I need to do is write something down to cement it in my mind enough to actually do it. By the time I get around to looking at my notes again, I’ve already done the thing.

But sometimes, I’ve written something that I need to do something about. Trying to find it again in my notebook, which is just a mishmash of information after all, won’t work. Having an index or some other way or organizing my actual notebook has never worked for me either, because I need to be able to just take my notes without worrying about that.

So, at some point, I process my notebook. If I’m really on top of it, I’ll process at the end of the day. More likely, I’ll process at the end of the week. Or — most likely of all — I’ll just just process as I realize I need something that I’ve written down.

Processing the Information in my Everyday Notebook

This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. I go back over my notes and I do something with them, if something needs to be done.

If I’ve written a note for a current project, that note might need to transcribed into my notebook that’s specific to that project. But also, maybe not. If the note is just a reminder to do something and I’ve already done it, then I don’t need to re-write it in my project notebook.

If I’ve handwritten a scene for my novel, I’d process that by typing it into my manuscript — which, with any luck, would kick off a decent writing session.

If I’ve recorded a quote or a line from a book that really registered with me, then I might write that on an index card to put into my Commonplace Book.

If I’ve made an appointment, that would go into my planner.

Grocery lists or other shopping lists I often just keep right in my Everyday Notebook. I use sticky notes to mark a page if I think I’m going to have trouble finding it when I need it. Or I take a picture of it with my phone so that I can access it more easily.

If I’m working through a problem with a list of ideas, solutions, or next steps, I often just keep that in my notebook as well and only move the actual tasks that I’m going to take action on into my planner. Or maybe I’ll be inspired by my ideas to write a blog post, so that will go into my editorial calendar.

Any blog post ideas go into my editorial calendar, which is where I also keep my plans and schedules for Ninja Writers.

When I’ve processed something from my notebook, I just mark through it with a highlighter. That way I can still read it if I need to, but I can see that I’ve moved it to where it needs to be and I don’t have to do anything more with it in my notebook.

Why This Works So Well

This two step process is like magic.

Getting everything out, putting it all down — all my ideas and all the minutiae of my life — in one place is the first step. It starts my brain working on what’s actually going on right now. Not what might happen later. Not what I think is happening. Not what seems like might be happening. What actually is going on in my life in the moment.

And if my brain is working, it’s coming up with solutions and ideas, bubbling away in the background even if I don’t realize it.

The second step, going back over those notes later, forces me to prioritize. Picking through all of the stuff that I wrote down and deciding what needs further attention and what doesn’t, helps me to organize my thoughts and my life so that my brain knows what to focus on.

And writing some things down a second time really helps me make sure that I don’t forget what’s really important.

What the Everyday Notebook is NOT

Well. It’s not pretty. And it’s not a planner or a Bullet Journal.

I tried, for years, to use a Bullet Journal and it always ended up being an art project that made me feel like a failure because I just couldn’t make it work for me. Not the way I needed it to.

The Everyday Notebook is different. It’s not pretty. It’s ugly even. And it’s not a journal at all. Or a scrapbook. You probably won’t want to paste your mementos into it. I don’t even keep mine at the end of the year. (Gasp, right?)

It is hyper-functional and 100 percent life changing and those things are way more important to me than pretty.

If you wanted to, you could have a Bullet Journal and use your Everyday Notebook to capture all your ideas on a daily basis and then process some of them into your Bujo at the end of the day or week or archival purposes. Or if you’re using a Bujo as a planner or to hold things like you reading notes.

But by itself, the Everyday Notebook is not a planner or an art journal. I think it’s far more elemental than that. For me, it’s more important.

It doesn’t replace other tools. I use a planner, for instance. I use an editorial calendar and I have a system for keeping track of quotes and research and one for recipes.

My Everyday Notebook is the tool that makes all of those other things work properly so that they can do what they’re supposed to in my life.

Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter and Instagram and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation, and The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.