Notebooking takes time and space

It's somewhat like creating an onion in reverse

If I could give my young self three words of advice, it would be: “Watch this video.”

Austin Kleon … 31 minutes … click here

Of course, that’s ridiculous … there was no internet back then; I was 37 when Austin Kleon was born; and YouTube didn’t show up until Valentines Day, 2005. However, every day is the first day of the rest of our lives, so better to start today than not to start at all. So, my advice stays the same: Watch this video … no matter how old you are or I am.

Here’s something I don’t think we tell people enough: take your life seriously. You don’t have to be a grump about it, but it’s yours, your life is the lump of clay you’ve been given. You can toss it aside because it’s a shapeless, dull gray blob. Or you can make a tea pot.

I’ve often thought about Buckminster Fuller. At a very young age, he decided to document the life of an “ordinary person.” He proceeded to do just that and his extensive archives are now stored at Stanford University.

Atlas Obscura describes Fuller’s commitment: “From then until his death in 1983 he collected everything from each day, with ingoing and outgoing correspondence, newspaper clippings, drawings, blueprints, models, and even the mundane ephemera like dry cleaning bills.” Fuller added to the Dymaxion Chronofile not just every day but, from the year 1920 until his death in 1983, every fifteen minutes.

I wonder: did he collect all of this because he was an exceptional person … or did the process of collecting and taking his life seriously make him exceptional. Chicken and egg stuff.

I’m sure even the erratic, sometimes beautiful, mostly just plain messy, version of journaling that I’ve done for years has changed me, opened up new connections, lead to new perceptions, and deepened my experience of life. Now, I want to take it even further.

Joining Substack has been like stepping from a gently babbling brook into a gushing river. I know I can’t drink it all, but I want to do more than sit on the bank and watch it rush by. I want to do a better job of catching what intrigues me and interweaving it into my being and my life experience in a way that allows something new (at least to me) to emerge.

Thinking on Paper … Notebooking: Input (pause) Output

If the foundation of writing is thinking, I want to practice thinking better by creating a pause between input from the world before it turns into personally authentic output. I am becoming more convinced that one primary form of that pause comes from thinking on paper … sometimes called journaling … perhaps more accurately called notebooking.

Major takeaway: This is a much slower process. Watching the 31 minute video took about an hour and a half to think about it and take notes on it. What I highlighted: Doing things well takes time … thinking time and space.

Austin Kleon video notes

A beautiful part of Kleon’s video is all of the examples of great notebook keepers. We also have access to more amazing examples right here on Substack in Noted by

Jillian Hess

. A great deal of her amazing content sits behind a pay wall but here’s a post that is open to everyone and gives you some great ideas for your own note taking journey as she highlights six Substack notebookers: Austin Kleon Caroline Cala Donofrio Nishant Jain B.A. Lampman Katherine May Helen Sword

Warning! Don’t be intimidated by the beauty of some of these notebooks. This is a thinking process and, generally, not a product. I love Austin Kleon’s reminder that “A notebook is a good place to put a bad idea.” Or a bad drawing, or a bad joke or anything else that comes to your mind in a draft form. Just catch it and let it simmer.

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Special Thanks to

Maya C. Popa

, who writes Poetry Today, for this post: The 1% Rule: A Poet’s Take on Atomic Habits and five takeaways you can use in your writing life

Her post led me to the Kleon video mentioned above and set off a thought process of reinvigorating my note-taking process and habits.

I loved this quote from Kleon: “I never ended up playing professionally. However, looking back on those years, I believe I accomplished something just as rare. I fulfilled my potential.”

However, when I shared the quote with a friend, he immediately asked: How do you know what your potential is?

Now, I’m stumped again. más tarde … and, in the meantime:

Live what you love.