Back from the wilds...
... of Caithness and Orkney. Sadly, we didn't see any whales (though a pod of Orcas were in Stromness Bay one day, apparently), but I did see a few birds I'd never seen before, which is always nice.
Now, back to the grindstone, as they say...
Inspired by Stu's post on Instagram, I may have to Tackle My Desk as it currently looks like a midden (see below!). I mean, even after I've sorted it out, it won't look all that tidy, but right now it's about as bad as it gets. I don't really know why I have some of the things on it that I do, especially all the notes and Gaelic grammar books, given that I abandoned trying to master that language a while ago. Nor am I entirely sure why I have a whole heap of other stuff on there. I'm also fairly sure all that dust isn't essential.
(what my desk currently looks like!)
What is essential, then?
My week to view diary has to be visible, otherwise I'm lost. My laptop and second screen are also essential (though... my second screen is being temperamental and doesn't work more often than not, so I should really sort that out). Apart from pens and pencils (in numerous pots), the only other thing I really need on my desk would be a notebook.
Hang on... did I say a notebook? Singular?
I don't bullet journal. I tried, and I was never going to be in the "Let's make this all pretty" camp (life is too short and too full for that), and my brain doesn't really like having things mixed up. I want to keep book ideas separate from this week's grocery list, for example. And life is too short to be rewriting anything that doesn't need rewriting.
Multiple notebooks then.
And that, my friends, is why my desk is heaving with stuff. Because I have Norwegian notes, book notes, notes on all the things I need to keep track of with my Mum (who is very unwell), notes on random things (like, how much my Amazon ads in Australia cost last month), book research notes, a to-do list...
You get the drift.
Now, don't all die of shock, but I might (might!) be gravitating towards pocket notebooks for managing some of this, all held together in the fabulous cover I got years ago (Stu has one almost the same that he used for Camino notes).
Yes, you read that right. Amanda-the-massive-notebook-aficionada moving towards a pocket notebook (or four), in a cover.
When I got the cover, it was undyed/untreated and a bit of an odd, pale colour. It's now the colour of honey (picture of the original was from my blog).
It's a super-simple cover - just the cover, the pen-loop and four elastics to hold the notebooks, and I do confess it doesn't take up as much real-estate on my desk.
At the moment, it has just two notebooks in it: "random" (which is a Whitelines notebook), and "Mum" (which is a Wilder notebook, like these only lined not dot). I suspect others may creep in, but at the moment, "Random" is holding everything that is non-book-related and non-Mum related. (Book-stuff cannot be contained in a small notebook. It just can't)
You heard it here first... Amanda is using pocket notebooks!
