What do you actually do with a stack of pocket notebooks once you own more than you'll ever fill? Tom's been figuring that out for six months, and it turned into an actual system: a custom monthly and weekly planner, daily notes, and a pocket journal that's his new daily carry wallet. Jeff's carried notebooks for decades and joins in with his own habits, plus a magnetic pocket e-reader that's small enough to attach to the back of your iPhone.
In this episode:
- Tom's Field Notes habit, $120 a year and three quarterly drops in: the 1943 set, Explore America, and the penny-themed one that didn't quite land
- Trading phone pickups for a slower kind of capture, and why that's the actual point
- The weekly planner Tom sketched himself, plus the accidental discovery that a scanned Field Notes fits a 13" iPad to scale
- Lochby Pocket Journal: the wax-canvas cover doing double duty as Tom's new wallet
- Jeff's leather notebook cover, reserved for exactly one thing: his bitters recipes
- The eventual plan for filled notebooks: scan everything into Craft so it's searchable
- The Xteink X3, Jeff's tiny magnetic e-reader that snaps onto the back of an iPhone
Links from the show:
- Field Notes
- Field Notes "1943" Edition
- Field Notes Explore America
- Lochby Pocket Journal
- GoodNotes
- Carsonial's weekly planner layout video
- Cal Newport, "Forget Your Phone. You Need a Single-Purpose Notebook"
- Xteink X3
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
- Drop us a line at feedback@basicafshow.com
- You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
- Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
- Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
- Tom has a new YouTube channel
- Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design
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Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.
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