Hoarding notebooks and when to use a new one

Plus pen errors, videos, too many "active" notebooks and mid-century furniture

Mar 24, 2025

Hi,

We hope you are safe and well, and enjoying your stationery. Rob here with this newsletter. We have a new episode of the show out today about hoarding notebooks and what makes us crack open a new notebook.

You can find the episode “Hoarding notebooks and when to use a new one” here.

We’ve also done two Instagram Videos, one of Helen opening her notebook storage unit, and one of Rob doing the same plus emptying it (and counting the contents!). More on that later.

Hoarding Notebooks

We like notebooks. Most stationery freaks do too. We often mention our growing collection of notebooks, and how we keep buying new notebooks even though we don’t need them.

As such, we thought we’d do a full episode on this topic (Problem?) and share what makes us open a new notebook.

Stationery Stories

We always start our episodes with personal stationery stories from me and Helen.

After the last episode on mechanical pencils, Helen is now actively searching for her entire collection. They’re in the house somewhere, but she can’t lay her hands on them. Probably behind her notebooks somewhere.

I take the Penac Protti to work and get lots of love for the pencil. I also get covered in pencil and draw pictures of people in a meeting. I also drop the pencil and break the lead.

Listen to the episode for more on this.

You can find the episode “Hoarding notebooks and when to use a new one” here.

Notebooks

We both have huge collections of notebooks. Helen’s seem to be more beautiful and awesome. Mine seem to be more functional. Our differences around stationery is what unites us.

Helen, as you will see in the video, has 36 notebooks. I have 116.

Helen tends to approach notebook usage from a functional lens, looking for a purpose for each notebook. I approach mine from an emotional lens, looking for a suitable notebook to deal with either Clarity, Excitement or Despair.

We chat about the potential a notebook has; a new project, world domination, a new book, etc. But also how we often ruin the notebook on the first page. That first page seems to be so important.

I talk about how I have 12 notebooks on the go, and because I work in a garden studio (and cannot realistically carry 12 notebooks up and down everyday), I often don’t have the right notebook, in the right place, at the right time.

Hence, even though one of my notebooks may start out with a clear purpose, it often ends up being morphed into a general use notebook.

However, as much as this makes it hard to find anything, there is also an upside; the serendipity that comes from stumbling across a note, months after writing it, that provides clarity or inspiration.

We chat about a single notebook and how we both like and appreciate minimalism, but it seems at odds with our natural tendency to keep hoarding stationery. We’ve done a cast on this before.

Helen muses about how her least transient work is her creative writing - hence her notebook has a clear purpose long term.

We also then discuss a rather interesting discovery; a fellow stationery freak who adores good pens and pencils, but has not time, nor interest, in good notebooks. We can’t comprehend how this could be, surely the two in harmony are what brings the best from both.

Helen has a sombre realisation that she will never have enough projects for all of her notebooks. And I see a business opportunity in selling my half-used notebooks.

Helen is off to London with her daughter soon and will be visiting a well-known stationery store that we talked about in our interview with Maria Le Van.

We mention these other Stationery Freaks casts:

Vinted and Stationery
Little red notebook mentioned in this cast on goal setting.
The dichotomy of minimalism and stationery freakness.
Maria Le Van notebooks and London stationery shops.
The perfect mechanical pencil.

London Stationery Show

We’re also contemplating attending the London Stationery Show in May. We’ve not confirmed yet but we hope to attend, and we’ll record an episode there. If you’re going to be at the show, let us know and we’d love to say hi. And of course, if you’d like to be on the show we’d love to interview you.