Portrait mode notebooks and Markdown

Notes and note-taking apps

A few weeks ago I gave up on productivity apps. Kind of? But seriously, I’m just going all in on pen and paper. Keeping it simple. I have used plenty of different note taking apps and services trying to replicate my analog system in the digital world but I keep coming up short. Or at least, that’s how it feels. Even though I probably have been more productive since turning to digital tools, I was never more in control of my tasks, ideas, and thoughts then when I was just using a pen and notebook all those years ago trying to juggle classes and work.

There are still a few things I’m working out (like how to get my notebook to give me a location-based remember) but I’m sure it’s possible. My fiancee never stopped using a pen and paper so she’s happy that now our shared grocery list isn’t trapped in Apple Notes every time I switch to an Android phone. It’s just on a piece of paper that I’ll likely forget on the fridge because my notebook didn’t remind me before I left the house. But hey, I’m working on it!

in this issue

📝 Portrait mode notebooks

🎴 Stationary Awards

📲 Notion to Obsidian

📝 Portrait mode notebook

Even when I was a die-hard notebook guy I could never make the pocket notebook work. I’ve always loved the idea of carrying around a Field Notes to jot down my prolific ideas and thoughts like, “Don’t forget the milk” or “Podcast segment where we all speak like Yoda” but it always felt too cramped. My main notebook that I write in is the Leuchtturm1917 which is a great notebook, but too big to fit in my pocket. I’ve tried using a small pocket notebook at least a dozen times over the years but I always end up failing because I feel like I'm a giant writing a note to an ant. But then I saw this video by the creator of the Bullet Journal (Ryder Carroll) and my mind was blown. The solution is simple: turn it sideways.

By turning it into portrait mode the page size is just slightly smaller than what I’m used to in my main notebook. It gives me more space to write horizontally which removes the claustrophobic feeling for some reason. I’m able to get more of the sentence down on the page before needing to move on to the next line. This is one of those solutions that’s so simple that I’m mad I didn’t think of it. In my defense, neither did Ryder Carroll. Apparently, this is just how his father uses pocket notebooks and it blew his mind as well. Making this one change has made my little Field Notes actually useful and something that I think I’m going to be using for a long time. Or at least until a shiny new app rolls around.

🎴 Japanese Stationary Awards 2025

I wouldn’t say that I’m suuupper into stationary, but I’m not not into it either. Some kids liked back to school shopping because they got new clothes, but I got new pencils and binders. One thing I love doing at the end of every year is checking Jetpens to see the yearly recap of the Japanese Stationary Awards. You would think that there would be nothing left to innovate on when it comes to pen and paper, but you’d be wrong.

Every year, there are things like this UFO Pencil Case from Sun-Star or these gorgeous mt Upcycled Washi masking tapes. Unfortunately, these are pretty hard to get/play with as the popular items sell out, not to mention they’re Japanese awards and I don’t live in Japan. Thankfully, you can usually find some of the items at fancy stationary stores and (lucky for me) there are plenty of those here in NYC. Any time I pop into a random stationary store I typically pull up this list to see if I can try out a few of the winners in person.

📲 Notion → Obsidian

Although I’ve switched back to my notebooks for everyday tracking and medium-sized projects, there’s still a small library of digital notes that I need access to on a daily basis. And they’re all trapped in Notion. Don’t get me wrong, I love Notion. It was the app that started my obsession with note-taking apps. Especially because it’s more of an all-in-one productivity software than it is a simple note-taking app. But I love the idea that it can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Whether you need a to-do list or a dashboard to track analytics, you can build it in Notion. But philosophically, I think the internet would be a better place if everything worked a little more like Obsidian. And now there's a plug-in that transfers your Notion notes directly into Obsidian.

If you’ve never heard of Obsidian, it’s basically a fancy text editor. You write your notes in Markdown (a common note-taking language) and those files live in a folder on your computer. Obsidian simply takes that folder and shows you its contents. Your files never live in a cloud service and if you ever want to leave for another app, you can import markdown almost anywhere. The problem for someone like me is that most of my life is in Notion so copying all of my notes over to Obsidian has basically kept me from going all in on the software. But now they’ve released a plugin that will do the work for you. While I don’t see myself leaving Notion anytime soon as it’s what I use for work and sharing random pages with friends, I will be using this tool to move all of my personal notes into Obsidian (once all the bugs are worked out). The more control I have over my important notes, the better.

Special thanks to Cool Supply members:

Abstronautica, Taylor Cash, Ben Sorensen, Daniel Hernandez, Becca Farsace, Abraham Perez, Charles Malave, Dean D, Jacob Mitchell, and Justin Oster! ❤️