During several online meetings with colleagues and even a customer for whom I am doing a post-sales, post-contract job, I managed to find most of my notebooks. Half of them - the unused ones - nicely located at a single location close to my office desk. The used ones, honestly, I thought I needed to collect them from my storage room all the way down in the car parking garage aka basement, kinda like a massive 3 floors down.
But but but, when I was in my walk-in closet - not in the basement, in my apartment - I noticed a few relatively tiny storage boxes and thought: "These contain stamps, flyers, postcards and stickers (perhaps for future HIVE Collectors posts); My early bird notebooks aren't in any of them." Usually, when I think something like that, I don't open those boxes but continue the search somewhere else. Fortunately, this time was different. While on a Teams call, I opened the first one and voìla, a whole bunch of notebooks neatly stored. As already suggested; Early bird notebooks, those I used in the past millenium.
I still missed many of the notebooks I used for the office. Again, I found them neatly piled up in my office desk. Totally forgotten about this. When I turned my apartment upside down to get rid of all the clothing moths (story here) I - apparently - collected all these from various spots and stacked them. Not knowing what to do with them - throw them out, or keep them - I kept the lot for later processing.
Lesson learned:
- Go by hunch, not by logic. Saves tons of time!
- Online office meetings are perfect for preparing posts for HIVE
The Collection - Seemingly Chaotic but Structured:
- Today's Notebook - today is quite abstract
- Toilet Notebook - without the 't'
- Stacked - kinda a summary
- Used, from Early to Late - proper timeline
- Unused - all over the place
Structured! Right? 😆
Today's Notebook - today is quite abstract
https://images.ecency.com/DQmWAxeqa8jPPNgcN7YwPhURrUQrCG7CNYgsLbaSi5cm2x8/2026_02_04_15.59.29.jpgWhat can I say. This is just a single little pile I have. On my desk, I have another 3 of those piles. Higher and larger in size. Truly need to take care of this. It'll free up space on my desk, which I need by now. Recently, I moved my desk to my living room. Cleaning the notebook piles will also bring more 'rest' to this living space; Something suggested by a good friend.
The older I get, the less organisation I apply. Though many of the notes I can quickly find. At least I know in which pile they are. But I'm degrading on this front. I am not spot on anymore.
Mucho years ago, I was mucho better in finding anything specific in seemingly unorganised piles of paper. In the distant past, during one of my annual reviews, my manager told me I was inefficient in my work. When I asked him: "How do you conclude this?", he pointed to my super unorganised office desk (in the office, not my home office desk). That one was bad! Filled with notes, notebooks, books, chaotically placed across the whole desk, a large desk. The middle of the pile must have been at least 25 centimetres high, with stacks of half a meter at the sides and top. Obviously, I disagreed, but I was not believed. Weeks - perhaps months later - when I was on a business trip, my manager called me and asked if I could help with this and that. I could - of course - and told him: "I've written a document, it is printed somewhere on my desk." He said: "Oops, then I need to wait till you are back!"
This was my moment! I told him to go to my desk and guided him - in less than 10 seconds - to the document in question, somewhere in the left-middle of all the chaos (I still remember this episode in my life vividly).
He was dumbstruck and flabbergasted at the same time!
And I was happy, of course 😆
Since then, he never said I was inefficient anymore. He even apologised. Though he still wanted me to tidy up my desk. I said yes, but I never did. As you may understand by now, I am not so good with such unnecessary authority 🥳
Toilet Notebook - without the 't'
https://images.ecency.com/DQmVTgei2wXAgr6EXsCiGvrnkZrQRme6gGUQ5uapcZogeC4/2026_02_04_15.42.03.jpgI love this one! Not sure what it means, the sub-text I mean. Is Switzerland a toilet? Do they like to be one? Did a toilet manufacturer supply this notebook? All I remember I bought this one to push myself to pick up drawing again. I never did. Not really. So this notebook aka drawing book, stayed empty. A super nice drawing book, though; One with super thick paper. Am sure I can use paint on this instead of just pencil or pen. When finished, it can be framed without doing anything extra. Uhm. Perhaps I shall place this one somewhere in eyesight. To trigger me constantly. To give me the push I wanted to give myself decades ago. Yes, this isn't a young notebook - uhm, drawing book.
Stacked - kinda a summary
https://images.ecency.com/DQme9S9HHkv6Ks1qjpgcAbmRbK86NGJY4fQQFNMas1ofRyj/2026_02_04_15.56.12.jpgAll the unused ones stacked. The few to the left, the standing ones, are used. Later more about all of them.
Used, from Early to Late - proper timeline
https://images.ecency.com/DQmWZRiupcekfFA1dqT1ncvbobQBy8ybANnt1CPiN9ohsVm/2026_02_04_15.52.24.jpgAm not sure anymore, but it seems I started using some sort of a notebook in my first Uni year. At least, this is what I was able to dig up. Nothing from before 1988. Agendas, they are. Tasks I wrote into them. Wrote tons of notes, but not in these 'notebooks'. To collect those, I need to dig through the piles of boxes in my basement. That I know for sure. It'll be a few meters of notepads. I assume you are not interested in seeing them. If I am wrong, tell me. I'll dig them up for you. Next week I have tons of online office meetings anyway.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmPT43nWzDWKwcLGLgjGXXFegbi3Bcz61V8pioE6GxinB9/2026_02_04_15.49.22.jpg https://images.ecency.com/DQmcW4FoUmwB1Abj4KsRGJ7Z96ucRouyaepy4mSVvpfjQ12/2026_02_04_15.50.59.jpgStraight after Uni, waiting for my military draft, programming various software packages for almost no money, I apparently decided to spend a shitload of money on a Filofax. A black leather one. Expensive. Also, all the official inlays were expensive. Just the diary for 1997 was 22,50 Dutch Guilders back then, kinda like 10 Euro. Must be 3 to 5x today with all the inflation we had to deal with.
Anyway. I used it for 4 years, perhaps a bit longer. As you see in the right-hand photo, I have the years up to 1997. 1998 got lost. The whole Filofax got lost. In fact, it was stolen. While on a business trip to Vancouver, Canada, I left my laptop case with my Filofax, my wallet, my passport in the car, for just half an hour. Broken window when we came back. My bag was gone. I was shocked. Not the first time I got robbed, but I wasn't expecting this to happen in the kinda laidback and friendly Vancouver! A bummer for sure, but I was able to get everything replaced within two days, including a temporary passport from the Embassy, credit cards from Amex and Master. The Filofax and a few other items I claimed with my travel insurance, the new list price. All paid. But I never bought a new Filofax anymore.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmeKaamzS6hW77fMeR3V5h1ypgfCBCzdjw2T8owkRRAmD1/2026_02_04_15.51.52.jpgI started using cheapo agendas for my tasks and stuff I needed to be reminded of.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmXriGhYiM4p9YTpcTjo1Wna26Y5caUcqRqzyhHNuqFvxA/2026_02_04_16.31.14.jpgFor notes, I used cheapo office notepads. In various shapes and forms. Sometimes I nicked a thin notepad from a random hotel during one of my business trips. I even used a few hardcover notebooks. Didn't buy any of them. Several of my employers got them for me. Sometimes branded, sometimes white labelled.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmRuWRmh4rmp4wXJNCMyE6Hxsfzts5dzq4VaDjLeSVijHJ/2026_02_04_15.41.23.jpg https://images.ecency.com/DQmSP6XPH3Ryo9Th8J1sRZn4VKWDyAZzhjsgHbf3dYyqPz3/2026_02_04_15.41.38.jpgAlso took a few of these from one of the offices I used to work in. I thought, these are nice to use. But I never even tried. Now they are: 1) sitting patiently waiting to be used, and 2) listed in the wrong section in this post.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmTudNsVgb5VFpd1LbfFEhekyp8zaARjHnuwrskDLYCwAp/2026_02_04_15.41.11.jpgAbout wrongly listed: This one as well. I not only have 1 of them, but a whole stack. At least 10 of them.
I like the title and subtitle. Am far from an Executive in office terms, although I execute tons of tasks daily. Am not applying art to my writing, at least, not that I know of.
Not too long ago, I started to use one of them. I take notes and then pull the page from the book to add to one of the piles of notes on my home office desk. Please, don't ask me why I don't keep them in the notepad since I don't know the answer. Ok ok ok. I do know the answer: "Because I can organise them better in piles 😆."
https://images.ecency.com/DQmZgbUXFkXVHJGgAqK76ZJm64rHMhfE4AJomdUGo5H67pg/2026_02_04_15.44.26.jpg https://images.ecency.com/DQmNWrZPEFrikaPdmkjFkgahEFdar3M7LXzEn8eBQrgngRR/2026_02_04_15.46.20.jpgThis one I bought together with the glass fountain pen (here). The idea: Use it together. But then I noticed the paper was way too soft. It would absorb the ink no letter or word would be readable during the drying process.
I wanted a special topic for this notebook. I left it untouched for a while. Years later, I decided to write down my dreams. Perfect notebook for such. Reviewing this before I started to write this post, I concluded I was 1) not having many dreams, or 2) quickly running out of energy to write down my dreams. Five dreams I've written in the book only.
I'll not go into the dream I wrote on the first page. Those of you who like to know can either import the image into an AI and ask to translate it into your language of choice, or wait till I use this for HIVE Hand Written community (@hive-115590).
Unused - all over the place
https://images.ecency.com/DQmaJzAKRWJVfhHSEswPAXu5cvhG5JqUQdfyQE1TM5Wo3Po/2026_02_04_15.43.49.jpgIt must have been 4 to 5 years ago that I ordered the coloured bunch. My first order with Ali Express I decided I wanted to fill up the shipping box. Ordered all sorts of things which I thought can be useful. Including these notebooks. Though they are useful, I never opened them. The blue one I opened, but never approached it with a pencil, or pen, or anything that has ink onboard. But they look nice! Don't they? The logo. Uhm. It did remind me, and still does, of Timberland; The mountain and hiking shoe manufacturer.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmQSjzuN9FL8HyxCZ5PdoA27Fv1yMj7c6xJWBHVmRp8g1c/2026_02_04_15.42.46.jpg https://images.ecency.com/DQme8bari1HTibnYX5x8fipV1TzAfwLhTSDUHvJX2ed2hZf/2026_02_04_15.47.03.jpgSure 'Open' is for everyone. But 'Closed' isn't? 😆 Word play, by Mickeysoft and by yours truly 😱 Obviously this was a merchandise receivable. As the 3 beauty ones to the right. Those are the best I was gifted by some 'random' company. Just hope those guys at F5 don't read this post since they are a not so random company 😆 For the nerds amongst us, they deliver IT networking systems, top notch quality with steep pricing and they are kinda the defacto standard in telco and IT industries.
https://images.ecency.com/DQmc823x9kRN5oXXHy5v1UYDbV78tWgXwqgEfzUpyYEL618/2026_02_04_15.42.20.jpgLast but definitely not least, my HIVE notebooks. To my surprise, three of them! One with a pen. A pen I didn't show you in my previous HIVE Collectors post, but - still - waiting to be published sometime in the future. But first things first, I thought. My notebook contribution.
[IMAGE: https://i.postimg.cc/bYF5sjr3/qsounds-divider-003gimp.png]
an original including all media
