How much information can one person take in every day? I find myself soaking in tons of recommendations, cool ideas, and quotes every day. Whether it be listening to NPR on the way to work in the morning, talking to a friend about weekend plans or researching for a future trip... or the emails that I receive from Daily Candy every day, telling me all of the new hot spots that I should be checking out.
Is there a system to keep all of this organized? To create a type of mind map capturing how I end up where, why I purchased a certain book or CD? Well I have begun to keep a Moleskine Sketchbook to try and categorize some of this information. I am not only writing these items, thoughts, and ideas into my Moleskine, but I am also keeping an index at the front of each Moleskine, for future reference. It looks like I might not be the only one with a penchant for organization, there seems to be an entire world of Moleskine hacks. Check out these. Patrick Ng on Flickr, also does some very interesting work with Moleskine.
Moleskine hacks basically conform their Moleskine to meet their needs. It's amazing what a treasure trove a Moleskine can become, if used consistently. I currently not only use the Moleskine Sketchbook, but I have began using the City Moleskines as well. I have been able to return to New York and find my favorite hole in the wall panini shop or write down in my LA Moleskine that I don't think Pinkberry is really that great - despite its current popularity. Though I don't particularly enjoy their maps - they seem to be quite confusing, perhaps it's the way that they are broken into mini-grids. (Has anyone else had a problem with these?) I would prefer a larger foldout map. The overall Moleskine meets my organizational needs.
Well, whatever your memories be, I would highly recommend some form of organization. After all, aren't memories meant to be kept?
Article comments
1 - Jason
You know, I can only take in so much information in one day before my brain hurts. I have taken the habit of writing down, on scraps of paper, any neat thoughts that come to mind. . .of course, I seem to keep losing those tiny scraps.