When I was younger I saw the Indiana Jones movies.  Like many of my generation, it left an indelible mark on me.  One of the most lasting memories I have of the third film was the notebook.  In my mind’s eye, it was stuffed with all sorts of cool stuff.  It had fold out maps and pages.  It had all sorts of odd things stuck in the pages¹.  I wanted one.  I wanted my own that was filled with my own cool stuff.  In retrospect, it’s what led me to buy my first Moleskine at a bookstore.  That desire is also what led me to fail utterly in filling it but that’s beside the point.  Now, years later, not only can you get all manner of leather notebooks online and there are even websites devoted to people’s notebooks that are just filled with dynamic looking ephemera strewn throughout.

Here’s the problem.  Those notebooks are a lie.

You might be thinking, “I could do one!  It could be a travel journal and I’d record all the cool places I’ve gone and fill it with souvenirs from my Hemingway-esque travels!”  I don’t know what your travel budget is like but if it’s like a normal person’s, it would take you a LONG time to fill.  Not to mention that, at least when I travel, it’s not all champagne and bullfights.

I’m not saying you can’t go make a notebook look like that, you could.  It might even be fun.  Lot’s of people do it.  It’s called scrap booking and I understand that it was very popular 10 years ago.

So, what to do?  Should you stick stuff in your notebook?  What’s a Notebooker to do?  Well, binding issues not withstanding, its simple, when in doubt be genuine.  That thing you want to put in your notebook, why do you want it there?

Because it would make your notebook look cooler?  Meh.

Because it means something significant to you and puts you in a good frame of mind?  Go for it!

Are you putting something in your notebook because you’re in the mood to put something into your notebook? That’s disingenuous.  Don’t do that.

So…

Movie ticket stub? Meh.

Cigar band from the cigar you had the night you realized you were in love?  Yes!

Sticker with the quote about the tides?  That’s scrap booking.

1. In preparation for this article I searched images of his notebook and I learned that, over the years, I had imagined a lot of the details of it being stuffed.  Luckily, for the purposes of this post, it doesn’t matter.