Tom Anderson (00:02)
This is Basic AF episode ninety-four. Show notes for this episode can be found at basicafshow.com. How's it going? I'm Tom Anderson. So happy to have you listening to us joining us once again. And I am joined once again by Jeff Battersby. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (00:19)
Tom Anderson. Man, it's good to see your face.

Tom Anderson (00:22)
Likewise, been a couple of weeks. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (00:25)
Yeah, the usual.

We're back we're back on a normal cadence. We had the vacation cadence where we recorded a bunch in a row and then only texted each other. It was very lonely, Tom. I didn't see that bright shining box head of yours. Exactly right. Is that what it is? Is it you you look you look hydrated, pal. Yeah, and and yeah, you got the alfalfa hair going.

Tom Anderson (00:42)
forehead of mine. Good skincare, Jeff. It's good I'm I'm hydrated. Yeah, I'm well hydrated. Well, it looks something. It's very humid, so that helps.

Jeff Battersby (00:55)
What's that?

Tom Anderson (00:55)
Yeah.

It's very humid so that helps.

Jeff Battersby (00:58)
that yeah, I'm sure it does. And like I said, you've got a little a little bit of alfalfa head going on right now.

Tom Anderson (01:02)
Yeah, spedhead. Roll right out of bed into the closet. Yeah. Never mind. On onward we mo we go. wanna take a minute,

Jeff Battersby (01:04)
Is that what it is? You just craw great. You should come out of the closet. I've said that before, Tom. Yes, of course. All right, Tom.

Tom Anderson (01:15)
Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (01:16)
Yes, please. What do you want to do?

Tom Anderson (01:18)
To

I want to give a shout out. Big thank

Jeff Battersby (01:21)
Two?

Tom Anderson (01:21)
you and word of appreciation to the listeners that have decided to donate and support the show. So Jeff and Joe, we appreciate it. We won't mention last names. We'll keep you anonymous, but

Jeff Battersby (01:33)
Semi anonymous.

Tom Anderson (01:34)
semi. Joe knows who he is. We've said Joe's name plenty of times. I mean, Jeff knows who he is too. Jeff Battersby doesn't know who he is, but this Jeff does. So but no, seriously,

Jeff Battersby (01:37)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jeff knows who he is too. I have no clue who I am. Right, yeah. The Jeff that sent us money.

Tom Anderson (01:45)
thank you both for that. We appreciate it.

Jeff Battersby (01:47)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (01:49)
If you would like to join the list of supporters, we would be very thankful for that. And you can do that at basicafshow dot com. There is a support link up in the upper right. Just tap or click on that and that will get you. We are, it's not much.

Jeff Battersby (02:01)
And we're cheap date, by the way. We're not w yeah,

you know, yeah. you know, we we've been doing this advertising free, maybe not by our own choice, but advertising free for a long time. And we do it because we love each other. And we love you. So

Tom Anderson (02:18)
We do.

Jeff Battersby (02:19)
if you wanna come along and and give us a little you know, support us a little, we'd be super grateful for that. That would be a good thing. That way, you know.

Tom and I aren't the o only ones throwing probably about forty bucks a month at this.

Tom Anderson (02:37)
Which not much

for hobbies compared to like guys that go play golf, go to bars, go do whatever they do. So you're a cheap date, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (02:43)
Right, golf, geez.

I am a cheap dating, and so are you, Tom, and we have such a good time together. You and I. Yeah, I think.

Tom Anderson (02:48)
Well, we do. It's priceless, really. All right. So what do

we have on the agenda for today, my friend?

Jeff Battersby (02:56)
Tom

Anderson has lost his mind. That's that's what we've got. All right. So I'm gonna

Tom Anderson (03:04)
Again.

Jeff Battersby (03:05)
I'm gonna open the door with this. I have for very many years been a subscriber to FieldNotes. FieldNotes little company out of Chicago that I had the pleasure of visiting once briefly, right before they closed the doors for the day. they make phenomenal notebooks, pocket sized notebooks. most of them. They have some larger ones too.

And you know, I I confess that I have more notebooks than I will ever be able to use in a lifetime because I've had a subscription. They offer quarterly subscriptions where they send you cool notebooks plus a couple of other cool things, four times a year. And

Tom about a month and a half, two months ago, sent me a little message on the side that said, Hey, I I I finally did it. I subscribed to Field Notes. It was like, okay, cool. Is that how long? Was it six months? Wow.

Tom Anderson (03:58)
six months ago. If not longer. Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten three

three quarterlies. So yeah, that might have actually been late last year when I did that. See, time flies when you're having fun, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (04:08)
Okay. Anyway.

anyway, Tom, six months ago or somewhere in that range, subscribe to Field Notes. And my God, the man has gone analog. So Tom, talk to him maybe. I I

Tom Anderson (04:26)
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Jeff Battersby (04:31)
I think the the thing that you're most addicted to is change, Tom. That seems to be the

Tom Anderson (04:36)
I do embrace

it.

Jeff Battersby (04:38)
Yeah, you do. It's like, nah nah, let me do something else. I think this is a proc procrastination method. but

Tom Anderson (04:44)
I call it experimentation.

Jeff Battersby (04:45)
okay, you call it what you please. Chickens at the house, eggs for breakfast, which is great. I love that. And

Tom Anderson (04:53)
Uh-huh.

Jeff Battersby (04:54)
then you know, now a field notes subscription. So but y you've gone deep.

Tom Anderson (04:56)
Back to paper. Yeah. So it's

Jeff Battersby (04:59)
I mean I I definitely have many notebooks, as I may have mentioned,

Actually, I'm holding auditions today. If anybody wants to show up, you'll be a day late. I'm holding auditions today. Yeah, right.

Tom Anderson (05:12)
Don't show up tomorrow when the show comes out, you're too late.

Jeff Battersby (05:15)
This show's coming out tomorrow, but I have auditions today for a really lovely play. I was rereading it this morning called Birds of North America. And and the the cool thing is field notes about a year ago, year and a half ago, had a

Birds of North America series that they sent out. So I've already pre purchased for my actors and my stage manager a set of those notebooks to go along with the script that I give so they can keep notes on the polite while we're doing it. So they really have some cool stuff. They there's no question about it. But you know, I subscribed and then I, you know, use notebooks as needed. Tom has as is his want

Gone down the rabbit hole of no bookness. So Tom, talk to us about that rabbit hole.

Tom Anderson (06:12)
Okay, so you've been talking about them off and on on the show for probably as long as we've

Jeff Battersby (06:18)
Ever

Tom Anderson (06:18)
done this because they were in one of our I'm certain they were in one of our like best of the year, our favorite things of the year recaps. Probably

Jeff Battersby (06:23)
Yeah, definitely. No, I love

Tom Anderson (06:25)
the first year we did that. and so they came up there. other people have have talked about them too. I Joe Moyer is among that group. and so

Jeff Battersby (06:37)
might

be the Joe that donated.

Tom Anderson (06:39)
Possibly.

Can neither confirm nor deny that. but you mentioned that bird series,

Jeff Battersby (06:46)
Yes.

Tom Anderson (06:47)
that you just picked up for your folks there. and that was the first set that I bought, but it wasn't from me. It was a gift from my oldest son who funny enough sends us from time to time like stills from his bird cam that he has set up at his place. sets these feeders up and he sends me this as funny as he's he's a burly guy and he's like

Birdman. So

Jeff Battersby (07:10)
I like that.

Tom Anderson (07:11)
I got them for him and he really liked them. and after I saw them, I was like, yeah, those are kind of nice. and and if we go back like in the timeline of Tom's history here, all the way back to probably like the early two thousands up until the iPhone came out. I always used like a hardback journal for notes at work. it was I don't know if it was an A5 or something. No, it was just one of those little

Jeff Battersby (07:35)
Like a moleskin?

yeah.

Tom Anderson (07:39)
ones

you could pick up at, you know, the the office store or something. but I would fill those up and I probably filled up three or four of those over the years. and then once the iPhone came out, th and in in particular the the app store and that led to Evernote and then Evernote kind of became my catch off for all of my notes and everything because I liked that it was always there. I could search it, know, all of those things we

know that we can do with digital tools these days.

Jeff Battersby (08:09)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (08:10)
and so I did that. I still do that in craft these days. but anyway I saw that bird series that I bought and then after looking at the website and everything I thought you know I'll give this a shot and I thought you know I'm gonna commit to it for a year of the quarterly releases it's 120 bucks

Jeff Battersby (08:31)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (08:34)
I think it was

and typically they're fifteen bucks for a pack of three. I think is how they price most of them out. The bigger ones are a little more, but and so I did that. And as we said a bit earlier, I think I have received three now of the quarterlies because I got the nineteen forty three set. the

Jeff Battersby (08:55)
Yep. Which I have

s one of those sitting right here next to me.

Tom Anderson (08:59)
Yeah, those were those are kind of cool. Those were kind of the old reporter style where they flip back. but

Jeff Battersby (09:05)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (09:05)
you can use them portrait or landscape, which you

Jeff Battersby (09:10)
Yes.

Tom Anderson (09:10)
can do that with all of them, but that one lends itself pretty well to that. it's a little taller, I think, than the standard one.

Jeff Battersby (09:13)
Yes. Designed. Designed to be used as such.

Tom Anderson (09:16)
Yeah. And then I got the ones that were kind of the ode to the penny. They called the copper, I think is what they called it.

Jeff Battersby (09:23)
Yeah, which you would didn't love that much.

Tom Anderson (09:26)
I I like the cover.

in the feel of it, but it's just ruled like regular notebook paper and

Jeff Battersby (09:33)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (09:33)
I prefer the graph or the dot graph. Yeah,

Jeff Battersby (09:36)
Gotcha.

Tom Anderson (09:37)
so I'll probably pass those on to somebody. and then the explore America set.

Jeff Battersby (09:45)
Uh-huh. Super cool. Love that one. Yeah,

Tom Anderson (09:47)
Those are my favorites so far. I mean,

Jeff Battersby (09:49)
yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (09:50)
those are the covers are beautiful on those. and I really like those. And then the last ones we just got I we got a bunch of those too. So I've I too am a man of with a growing collection of pocket notebooks, Jeff, that I thought, well,

Jeff Battersby (10:03)
Ha ha ha.

Tom Anderson (10:04)
I have these notebooks. I should probably do something with these.

Jeff Battersby (10:08)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (10:09)
Other than look at them. Like s they are nice to look at. and so

Jeff Battersby (10:12)
Yeah, let me just

say let me just say that for a second that one of the things that these guys do really, really well. So you you mentioned the nineteen forty-two. Nineteen forty-two came with some cool notebooks that you you could either use vertically or horizontally. Okay. I mean, and as Tom said, you could do that with any of the notebooks anyway, but these were designed that way. So you could use them in either direction. But one of the things that came along with this, so if you had a subscription, was a copy, pocket sized.

military for the the guys that used to be in the military of the Maltese Falcon. The entire text of the Maltese Falcon. and so they it's it's more than just hey you get a bunch of notebooks in the mail. You get these beautifully designed like the birds of North America ones. Absolutely stunning to look at, really gorgeous. And that's kind of the plan. That's always a secret. It's kinda like your birthday every quarter. You you don't know what you're getting until until you get it.

So they they put a lot of effort into thinking about what it is that they're gonna do which with each of these these series of notebooks every quarter and you get something special. And they're limited edition. Not that anybody cares. It's like, you know, limited edition cereal. Okay, who gives a crap? Am I gonna save the cereal? No.

Tom Anderson (11:32)
Ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (11:34)
but i

it these are really like one of a kind notebooks that are in the style of actual field notes that that y you use you know that frankly used to come from seed companies for farmers. You know, they would they would that was their advertising method. They would give out a a bunch of, you know, cool looking notebooks to people. Which is where these guys at Field Notes, you know

got their inspiration. I think it's Kudell is the name of the company that actually puts this stuff together. Anyway, all that to say that each one of these is really unique and beautiful. All right, Tom, back to you.

Tom Anderson (12:17)
Okay. so got this big stack of notebooks, by the way. They had their twenty five percent off sale. I may have ordered a couple more. Yeah. 'Cause they're a few bucks. They're just a few bucks. So I I got a cup one pack of the national parks that I really liked.

Jeff Battersby (12:27)
what? Tom dude. The bug has bitten you, my friend. Just a few. Yeah, so nice.

Tom Anderson (12:41)
And again, it's just because they look nice. And then the the black cover. I thought that one was

Jeff Battersby (12:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I

love that black. The the big one or the little ones? Yeah,

Tom Anderson (12:48)
The little ones, yeah.

Jeff Battersby (12:49)
I've I've got a couple of the big ones that I do a lot of stuff with those are really cool. All right.

Tom Anderson (12:54)
Yeah. So

I you know, and I'd been listening to some different podcasts and things, people talking about them like how Newport was talking about, you know, always have a pocket notebook, you know, for something. He he tends to use it for a specific use case, like it's a single purpose notebook. You know, it could be a book he's working on or a project or something, and

Jeff Battersby (13:15)
Uh-huh.

Tom Anderson (13:15)
so he just carries that around and everything just related to that stays in one notebook. That way every time you pick up that notebook

mentally you're like, okay, I'm working on this particular thing and it's not just a a collection of things. then I found as I would continue down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos, of course there's bullet journals and there's all these other concepts and stuff, which I wasn't really I'm not really looking to get do like journaling necessarily, in the sense that I'm writing two, three pages just on what I'm thinking about that day or processing stuff, just trying to get it out of my head, you know. And I think what people think is the classic journaling sense.

As Joe Moyer told us on that great journaling episode we did some time ago, you know, yes, this is still technically journaling that we're doing, it's just a different type. it doesn't have to be this, you know, complex thing. and so anyway, I started to think, okay, well, what could I actually do with these? which by the way, just as a a tip.

Try to figure out what you're going to do with something before you buy it. Don't be silly like me and buy stuff and then figure out what I'm going to do with it. But I blame Jeff Battersby for this.

Jeff Battersby (14:21)
You're welcome. You're very welcome.

Tom Anderson (14:23)
yeah. And so I thought for me, you know what, I'm going to go back to what I was doing in the early 2000s. It's just going to be a place where our day to you know, day to day, I'm making little notes about the day, things I want to do, just ideas, random thoughts. Because the flip side of this, something that I'm trying to do is pick up the phone less.

because tell me if you've ever done this, Jeff. Hey, I need I need to put this into reminders or for me it's craft or whatever your app of choice is. I go to the phone to do that. look, there's a notification about some post on. So let me look at that. Okay. And then I put the phone down

Jeff Battersby (14:58)
Yep.

Tom Anderson (14:58)
and I never do what I was intending to do. Like, see, Jeff just got a notification on his watch as we're recording here. and so I thought, you know, this is not good.

Jeff Battersby (15:03)
I did. I did. My sister

liked the picture that I sent of her. It was her birthday yesterday.

Tom Anderson (15:09)
good. That's good. At least she didn't dislike it. And you'd have to hear about that. And so and so that's

Jeff Battersby (15:14)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I've

done that same exact thing that you're talking about. You know, you you you know, even here, I mean I have notifications turned off for some reason. I think because it's family, you know, in case somebody dies, you wanna know. So

Tom Anderson (15:29)
Yeah. Right.

Jeff Battersby (15:31)
that breaks through our little recording thing. But that happens to me often. So I will I I'll tell people, like if I'm writing, forget about it. The watch is gone, the phone's aside, and my

My writing focus allows no breakthroughs. So screw everybody, you know, doing the thing. But you're right. W one little one little thing, you send me a little text message and it's to a link on threads. What do I end up doing after that? Spending an hour on threads. Thanks, Tom.

Tom Anderson (16:02)
Because

it's easy to do. And I'll be honest, sometimes I enjoy doing that. Like because, you know, some of the the reels are funny, they're entertaining, some are informative. But the problem is it's so short, like you don't remember any of it. It's you know, it's kind of like cheap TV, you know, you're just kind of scrolling through, but it's very, very short. So there's like, you know, no build up of the story. And and I was finding I was just spending way more time doing that than I probably should have been.

Jeff Battersby (16:30)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (16:30)
again, it

Not that I wasn't enjoying it and it wasn't really keeping me from doing the important things that I needed to do, but I thought, you know, I could probably make better use of the time to do some other stuff. and so I put a limit each day now, I set up a screen time limit for my social apps for an hour each day. so that's helped too, because I'm like, okay, well, I've got an hour.

Jeff Battersby (16:51)
Mm. Hmm?

Tom Anderson (16:52)
That should be playing. so what I've tried to figure out is what the notebooks are going to be for.

And I think this is a very common problem that people have. They're like, I would like to do a pocket notebook, but I have no idea what I would write in it.

Jeff Battersby (17:11)
Correct.

Tom Anderson (17:12)
And so, you know, over the last couple of weeks what I've done is kind of, you know, sit with this a little bit. I've watched the videos and kind of you know, a lot of them I start and it ends up just being someone talking, which is okay, but I really want to see what people are doing in the notebooks. and so I've kind of taken some ideas from what I've seen there, but

so you know.

What I want it to be is like I mentioned, it's a way to not pick up the phone. substitute this for quick capture versus the phone because of all of the distractions that you you know, like you just said, it could be okay, I need to do one thing in the phone, but look, there's these other four hundred and fifty entertaining things I could do too. Let me fall into those.

And I want to be somewhere I can go and just kind of capture ideas and then eventually go back and review those ideas. So it's kind of more of like a slower thinking process because that's something else I wanted to focus on, which is a way to slow down, sit with things a little bit that I want to, like some not everything you need to do that with, obviously, but and so that that's kind of the approach that I've decided to take.

Jeff Battersby (18:19)
Very nice. So i in addition to that fun little approach, you've you've gotten some accessories, Tom.

Tom Anderson (18:30)
I did. So I was also in need of a new wallet.

Jeff Battersby (18:34)
Ha ha

Tom Anderson (18:37)
And I've been in need of a wallet for longer than I'd like to admit, but you know, as a guy, it's like I don't care. It goes in my pocket, it holds cards and cash, it does its job. and I thought, Okay, well if I want to have this notebook with me, obviously I could just put the notebook in my pocket. hence pocket notebook. but I thought, Well, maybe I'll get a little you know

cover or something for it that'll hold a pen and then I can put you know a few cards in there carry a little bit of cash. So I did that. So we went down that rabbit hole.

Jeff Battersby (19:06)
Mm.

Tom Anderson (19:07)
I found a nice leather cover on Etsy that someone was making. Ordered that. It's only $27, so it wasn't a big expense because I wasn't sure if I would like it. that came in soft leather nice. It's very well made the stitching's all good and everything. But the problem I've had with it is it's

the covers aren't sturdy enough. And so as I'm kind of shoving it in my pocket, it kind of wants to crumble up.

Jeff Battersby (19:33)
Gotcha.

Tom Anderson (19:34)
and so I was like, well, I'll just leave that one at the house. And then the other one that I had seen that people seem to have high marks for was the Lockby L-O-C-H-B-Y pocket journal, which holds two, maybe three notebooks, if you stick those in there.

It would start to get a little thick at that point. Two is pretty good. It'll hold a pen. and I've got, you know, four or five different cards in there and a little bit of cash or whatever. So that's kind of become my daily carry wallet for the last week. It's only been a week. does fit in both my front and back pockets, which was something that I was concerned about. Now with the shorts I had on yesterday, it didn't fit in the front pocket. I had to stick it in the back pocket, which is okay. I don't usually leave it in my back pocket when I'm at my desk. I just put it on the table or whatever.

so I think I'm gonna stick with that one. yeah, I'll keep the leather one too.

Jeff Battersby (20:30)
Okay. Are you gonna keep the leather one too? Or yeah, probably that's an Etsy that you you keep, right.

Tom Anderson (20:35)
Yeah, and like I say, it was only 20 couple bucks, so you know I may put like a home notebook or something in and just leave it in that as a cover or something. I don't know. but it wasn't much. and again, I don't know long term how this pocket journal is going to work out. Like I do like it. It has some type of an insert. I'm assuming it's like a thin

plastic or it might even be like a sturdy type of paperboard or something that's in between the the cover and the in interior lining. So it gives it some rigidity so it's easy to get in and out of your pocket without kind of balling up like the other one did. And so that is what I'm dragging to and fro work and on a road trip this weekend. And it and it worked out pretty well.

Jeff Battersby (21:16)
which which version of that did you get? Do you remember? 'Cause they I'm looking

Tom Anderson (21:20)
it is the

Jeff Battersby (21:21)
at the Lockby site right now and and they're you know, they've got quite a collection actually.

Tom Anderson (21:28)
They do. They have a lot. it is the pocket journal.

Jeff Battersby (21:32)
Okay.

Tom Anderson (21:34)
They've got a I think they've got a field journal, pocket journal, mini pocket journal, which was too small. I think for the field notes. That's why I didn't pick that one or sidekick, they may have replaced that with. So they got a a whole range. So if you want a big notebook, big journal like

Jeff Battersby (21:45)
Yeah, no kidding. I'm like I'm looking

at their site. There's like fifty different versions of of these things. And they're they're gorgeous. What's the what's the fit like? What's the how's it how how well put together is it?

Tom Anderson (22:03)
It seems to be very well put together. it has a canvas, outer shell, wax canvas, outer shell. it has two pockets on the front. Well, it's one pocket but it's split, so you can put a panel on one side, you can ruler or something on the other, and then a one single large pocket on the back. And then it has this kind of they call it the bumblebee, this material. It almost feels like like a tent material.

Jeff Battersby (22:29)
yeah, okay. On the inside.

Tom Anderson (22:31)
on the inside, yeah.

And you've got a slot on the right hand side where the back cover of your notebook would slide into to hold it in place. And then on the left hand side are the pockets for your cards, and then a bigger pocket that's like the full length of the half of the notebook that you could put cash or whatever else you want to put in there. Some people don't use it as a wallet, but they may put you know just different, you know, sticky notes in there to mark the pages of their notebook or pretty much anything that you can fit in there you carry.

Jeff Battersby (23:03)
Okay. Very cool. And the one the pocket journal I'm looking at it right now, it's about fifty bucks.

Tom Anderson (23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (23:10)
and as you said, holds d two notebooks, a little bit of cash, could be a wallet if you wanted it to be a wallet, which is which is kinda nice. and comes in looks like six colors.

Tom Anderson (23:26)
Yeah. So I bought the black one.

Jeff Battersby (23:29)
Okay, yeah. Black Bumblebee is what they refer to yours as.

Tom Anderson (23:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (23:36)
and then there's a a nautical, which is kind of a blue, black multicam, which is camouflage. And then there's a they call it olive, but it looks limeier to me than that. And then there is a

Tom Anderson (23:51)
Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (23:52)
there's a honey that is super yellow and I wouldn't use it. So yeah, Bumblebee.

Yeah I would choose the same.

Tom Anderson (23:59)
Right. I think they've got a few

they have a few leather ones as well, if I recall. Yeah. So

Jeff Battersby (24:03)
Yeah. Yeah,

so really, really nice, you know, really nice design. It looks like it. And as you said, fits in a front pocket. most of the shorts that I have have little side pockets in that that it would fit in. I I don't know. I I may be buying one of these now. Thanks, Tom. yeah, sure. Yeah, and whatever. Thank. Thank.

Tom Anderson (24:23)
Payback. and I will say it fits in

my front pocket with my Pro Max. So there's Mm.

Jeff Battersby (24:31)
Seriously? You

made big ass pockets, pal. Okay.

Tom Anderson (24:34)
They're really not. Like I was surprised. I was like, hmm. Now it helps too these

days. Like a lot of jeans and stuff are kind of that semi-stretchy material. They're not the stiff denim like we used to know. Thank God. Because that stuff was not really comfortable. yeah. When I get a little puffy.

Jeff Battersby (24:44)
fat ass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know I know the story.

so yeah, so that's that's nice. Nice. They look they look really good and as you said, or as I said, I might I may now be in the market for one of these. so in addition to the fancy carrying thing that you've gotten for your for your notebooks.

i you know, these are the the field notes notebooks, or really any notebook that you get, but field notes because we both love them. they have i they're pretty free for on the inside. As you said, they come in a lined notebook, some of them some of come with a dot grid and some with a come with a a full grid. And you've done a couple of other things with these journals, which to me is insane. But

to you is perfectly normal. Tell us how you've customized these f for yourself.

Tom Anderson (25:49)
Right, so none of this is like Tom's original ideas really. so these all came from the from the YouTube.

Jeff Battersby (25:56)
It just it just appeals to his obsessions.

Tom Anderson (25:59)
Well, because remember, I'm like, okay, so what am I gonna use it for? And so the first thought that I

Jeff Battersby (26:02)
Right, right. Practical.

Tom Anderson (26:03)
always go to is like a planner, right? So it's like a

Jeff Battersby (26:05)
Okay.

Tom Anderson (26:06)
lightweight planner. and so as you know, as I was watching these videos and coming up with ideas, one of the things that I saw that I thought would be nice to have

Because if it's gonna be my planner, like I need you know, obviously if you're planning on your computer, you're usually using like your to do list, maybe your notes app, they might be the same, your calendar, things like that. and so I thought, you it'd be kinda cool to have like a little small calendar in the notebook. Which at first I was like before I thought about, I like, Man, I know that'd be kind of small 'cause these notebooks are only what, like three and a half by five or something like that.

Jeff Battersby (26:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (26:41)
they're not real big. And so I thought, hm. and so

you know, I was watching these videos and I thought, okay, that looks pretty cool. like it might work. And then so this is where I went kind of extra, but this is what I do. That's why I'm doing this podcast. It's why I post about nerdy stuff on threads. This

Jeff Battersby (26:57)
Right. Right.

Tom Anderson (27:00)
is why people laugh at me and make fun of me. yes.

Jeff Battersby (27:02)
Including me. But go ahead.

Tom Anderson (27:04)
And I you know, it's okay. I thought

Jeff Battersby (27:06)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (27:08)
I thought well I didn't know what I wanted like the layout to be. And so I didn't want to like churn through like

twenty pages of a notebook trying to figure things out. And so I looked in GoodNotes, which is a a note taking app on the iPad. it's been around forever. I used to use it. In fact, you know, I mentioned before, you know, I was using those hardback journals. and even after, like during, you know, the last years I was using Evernote, and then when I did went to Bear and to Kraft, I was using GoodNotes as kind of my paper.

Right. Because as I've said on here before, like what I always really like to do if I've got like a something that I really want to think about and kind of work on in fits and pieces and just sketch out and work through. I do that on my iPad. And before it was good notes. Of late it's been craft, just because everything else is there. But one thing that craft doesn't allow for its sketches is like custom paper. So they offer ruled paper, you get a dotted.

graph and then a graph. So you get those three, but I wanted like a custom layout. Well what I found is if you scan a flat field notes with your phone, it's actually to scale in good notes on the thirteen inch iPad. So it's

Which was just

Jeff Battersby (28:39)
Ha ha ha.

Tom Anderson (28:41)
a s you know, I stumbled into that. Like I didn't do any math, be like, hey, you know what?

Jeff Battersby (28:44)
wow.

Tom Anderson (28:46)
and so if you put the notebook on your iPad like such, it it lays out perfectly on

Jeff Battersby (28:55)
That's interesting.

Tom Anderson (28:56)
on the iPad. And so I was like, so okay, that's good because then it visually I see it to scale, it makes more sense and everything. And so what I did is I took some of those concepts I'd seen in the YouTube videos, sketched out in good notes.

did four or five different flavors of that, put some that I thought were interesting on paper and they ended up not being so interesting. so there's, you know, you could go two pages of a notebook to be the calendar and you could get five rows down and seven across. So it's, you know, four dots apiece or something like that. and then just what I do is I just fill in like the important dates.

For the month, just like you would on your calendar. Like I don't put everything because again, like this is not intended for me at least to replace craft or the calendar on my Mac. So those are always like the sources of truth for me where everything's gonna live. but these are my okay, let's put okay, we've got a vendor coming at work. Let me put that on there. We had a we just got back yesterday from visiting my wife's parents. so I put that on there. so big things. but

I decided that was I didn't really need it to be that big and because what it ended up doing was a little bit of friction. So if I've got my calendar there and I'm trying to do like a monthly goal setting or something like that, I've got to flip back and forth between the pages. And so what I ended up doing is I made I turn the notebook sideways and I just put the calendar on one page. if you have the notebook flat in front of you, it it kinda runs

The wrong way, really, if you look at it. So you have to kind of rotate the notebook. But what that does is it lets me use the page opposite of it to do my my monthly goals. And then I'll go back and do like a monthly recap, add some notes in there. And then to take that kind of a step farther, I saw a guy on on YouTube, I think his name is Carsonal Newberry. We'll put a link to his stuff in the show notes. He had come up with a a pretty clean little weekly plan that takes up like half a page, not quite.

where you've got a goal across the top, like two things you need to do related to that, and then you've got days on the left hand side, it's like you know, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then you kind of put like the big thing you want to focus on for that day. And then on the op page opposite that, which would be the right hand page, is a spot for any daily notes that you wanna write down. And then you can do like your little weekly review there as well. and so I did that last week at work, and I think combined with that and

Not wanting to pick up my phone so much. Like I was able to stick to all the things that I plan to do for the week on those specific days because I'm not constantly the other problem I have is like I'll go into my task list and I'll see

Jeff Battersby (31:45)
huh.

Tom Anderson (31:45)
all of these things that I'm working on. And then I'm like, no, I'm gonna work on this one. It may not be the one I really need to be working on, but it catches my th my attention or something. And so I've stopped doing that. I'll do it at the start of the week.

And then put the things that I wanna do. That's kinda like my daily focus. Once I get my daily focus done, then I go back and look at the list to see if there's any other stuff I wanna do.

Jeff Battersby (32:10)
Very cool. Yeah, the way it looks, I mean I've never kind of gone as all in as you as you've done in this, but the way and it's funny, I I just zoomed in on your iPad. It is pretty amazing how how tight that is. you know, it does does look the same. But it's it's a good look. I would never do that. First of all, I you know, I don't keep those kinds of that's not how I I that's

That's not how I roll. I don't I don't roll that way as far as notebooks are concerned. Notebooks for me are ideas or, you know, if I'm directed a show like I'm doing now, it's a way for me to keep track of what's going on during a rehearsal. You know, it's a thing that I can do at that particular point in time. But not not something that I'm gonna do to to the extent that you have. But what you've done is really I I think pretty amazing.

You know, you've you've extended what you're doing well beyond anything that I would have thought about doing with this. and I d I I I think it's slick. What other kinds of things are you using these notebooks for? What are you finding practically that you're doing? Is it

Tom Anderson (33:26)
So

Jeff Battersby (33:27)
I guess the that let me let me rephrase that question. Is it working for you? Okay. Right.

Tom Anderson (33:29)
Yeah. It is. Now it's it's new. So I'm not like,

hey, you know, I haven't stuck with it for a long enough period of time to say it will continue to work. but what I've decided to do is kind of try to stick with it for a few months to

Jeff Battersby (33:47)
Uh-huh.

Tom Anderson (33:47)
see how it works. it really like I'll be honest, the one I use two separate notebooks. So I've got right now I'm using two separate ones. I've got

One that's just for my kind of personal home stuff, and then I've got a separate one from work because I decided to mirror that. Like I've set up craft, because craft has this idea of spaces.

Jeff Battersby (34:07)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (34:08)
and so spaces are kind of like organizational units. And so I've got a space for all of my work stuff, I've got a space for all of my home stuff because I don't want to see my work stuff at home and I don't need to see my home stuff at work. and so I've decided to take that same approach with the notebooks. and so it

It I've to be honest, used it more at work than I have so far at home. but it was really nice at work. Like I f completely filled out the the notes for the day from last week, a couple of little ideas that I had for stuff. What I've also done is like because I've said I don't want 'cause one of the things I was concerned about is okay, well, how will I ever find stuff? Because

Jeff Battersby (34:51)
Okay.

Tom Anderson (34:51)
the allure for digital for me is like it's always there. You can search it.

Jeff Battersby (34:55)
Searchable.

Tom Anderson (34:56)
Right, now you can plug AI into it if you want, whatever the case may be.

But so what I did is I came up with a system so that if I put something in the notebook that needs to go someplace, like I intend it like, okay, some of this stuff's gonna end up in craft. And so when I put it in craft, you I just put a little note, you know, a little C in a circle added to craft, or if I put it in reminders, whatever it is, some of it doesn't need to, some of it ends up just getting scratched off 'cause it ended up being not a good idea. And so I just dump it. and so really that's been the biggest

use case for me so far is at work. Now we're planning to maybe move in about six months. So I'm gonna set up a notebook for things like that, just as I have ideas through the day or weeks or things like that stuff I need to do. Like we need to paint, we need to clean this, we need to replace these fans, you know, all that kind of stuff to get the house ready. and just ideas for what we might want in a new space, all those sorts of things.

Jeff Battersby (35:54)
Very cool. So your leather notebook, several years ago, around Christmas, you know, we have where I live, there's all sorts of artisans and and so somebody was doing the same thing, a leather notebook. I've had a leather notebook for one of my notebooks. It serves a very specific purpose for probably five or six years. That purpose is

Over the years I've kind of been playing with making bitters. so I I I have my bitters recipes in there and it has all the little tweaks and notes on each batch that I've made and what I've done with those particular batches as time goes on. I have another friend, actually theater friend, but he works in the food service industry. and so now I'm I've talked with him

Although he's super busy right now, he changed jobs. about, you know, scaling this up and maybe producing bitters on a much much larger scale. So I've now, you know, changed everything to to metric because metric's so much easier. Three and a half cups. you know. It it it's so much better. you know, it's so much better doing it the other way. But

That that leather, because it's special, is is set aside to a very specific purpose. I see yours has, you know, a couple of credit card holders and a and a pen holder. Mine is much less than that. It's literally just to hold the notebook.

Tom Anderson (37:37)
Mm-hmm. Just cover. Yep.

Jeff Battersby (37:39)
but that's what that became. That became my better's journal. That's that's you know, where I screw around with stuff. I've got the recipe in there and, you know, make tweaks and

add some things at certain points to make whatever it is that that I'm doing. So and the the leather notebook, nice fit. You know, it's it really is it kind of cool. You know, I really like having the feel and the touch of that. I think after this, after we finish recording, I'm gonna go order a Lockby.

Tom Anderson (38:11)
Ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (38:13)
I hate you Tom.

Tom Anderson (38:14)
No, it's okay.

Jeff Battersby (38:17)
all right. So overall your experience field notes good.

Tom Anderson (38:23)
Yeah. Yeah, it's good. The Lockby will come with the pocket notebook too. You'll get one of theirs.

Jeff Battersby (38:27)
Okay.

Tom Anderson (38:27)
which the cover is like a no-thrill like little paperboard cover, but it does it is sewn instead of stapled.

Jeff Battersby (38:35)
interesting.

Tom Anderson (38:35)
and so what I've read is those are more durable. I don't know. Haven't used that one yet. I do have a question for you, as someone who's used notebooks for many years now. what do you do with them when you fill them up?

Jeff Battersby (38:49)
So I I'm sure you've seen that FieldNote sells boxes, Tom.

I have two boxes. I have two boxes, Tom. I ordered

Tom Anderson (38:55)
How many boxes do you have, Jeff? Okay.

Jeff Battersby (38:59)
two boxes. And most of those are filled with empty notebooks. no

Tom Anderson (39:07)
As is my top drawer.

Jeff Battersby (39:08)
I listen,

y y as is your top drawer, right. I have I have a drawer that they get kind of tossed in and what's interesting is I kinda need to go back 'cause I've been doing notebooks for a very, very, very long time. so I I have you know, some notebooks I go back through and it's like, story idea. There's a story idea I had there.

And I I just hadn't looked at it. That's one thing I say I I will say is really nice about having a digital notebook, which I use Apple Notes constantly, is that for things like that, as you said, because it's searchable, you know,

Tom Anderson (39:49)
Right.

Jeff Battersby (39:49)
I've got a whole tag set up using forever notes. i for writing ideas. So, you know, I tag

Tom Anderson (39:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (39:57)
something with a writing idea and then I can go back to that and look and see what's what's, you know.

I might want to play with or what I might want to work on next. and sometimes that integrates into a larger whole. and sometimes it's just a standalone story that that I want to do. Or the other thing that I do is, you know, mm, as is often the case, you know, you're standing you know, in line at the grocery store and you go, yeah, that's that's what they can say. And

Tom Anderson (40:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (40:31)
then

You you jot down that little idea. my penmanship sucks, by the way. So that's another reason why why

Tom Anderson (40:36)
mine too. A hundred percent. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (40:39)
you know the yeah, I'll say this. Miss Mossession, that's one thing you were right about. That I that

Tom Anderson (40:48)
Ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (40:50)
my that my writing sucks. You were wrong about a lot of other things. but you were right about that. My penmanship sucks.

Tom Anderson (40:57)
That's funny. Yeah,

I'm a little not concerned, but one of the things I'm worried like is the the benefit of digital is that it's always with you. 'Cause

Jeff Battersby (41:10)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (41:10)
your phone's always with you. but also I'm worried like if I've got something in the notebook that like you says collection of ideas or something like that, and I lose the notebook, and I'm like, that's a bummer.

so I think what I'm going to do is I've set up a database in craft where I'm going to just scan the pages into it and then I've just got in case I ever need it. Or if I, you know, once I'm done with the notebook, if I want to like not have a drawer full of used notebooks or something, which up it they don't take up much room, so they'll probably up a box too. But I think it'd just be nice to have that digital backup. Plus I can search it. what I'd like to test to

Jeff Battersby (41:44)
Yes. Right. Cause it's

Tom Anderson (41:47)
see if I can run it through like transcription.

Even though I've got really poor handwriting to maybe get some of the text off the page into a note, like a digital note for searching and all that. But that's a follow up we can do later down the road.

Jeff Battersby (42:00)
Cool. All right.

Tom Anderson (42:02)
So tell us what you got, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (42:03)
Yeah, and this will be for two seconds. We'll we'll break at the forty-five minute point. So we'll be in good shape. So I I was looking at the wire cutter the other day and it it just kind of goofing off and was looking at e readers. I don't use an e reader, I prefer books. I I had a couple of Kindles. I it sucks. But I did see this thing called an it I don't even know how to pronounce it.

XT Inc., I think is the way that it's pronounced. it is, I'm holding it up for Tom to see, the teeny tiniest e-reader that you could possibly.

Tom Anderson (42:39)
Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (42:41)
it it is th maybe two inches by three inches in size. and I I got it just to see what it worked like. It has a little magnetic connector, so it will actually you know, the magnet on your iPhone, it will click.

to and and hang on the back of your iPhone. It is smaller than an iPhone by a lot. And I just wanted to test and see how it was you know how it was to work and it or how it was to use it. And I gotta say the thing is brilliant. It does not the one that I got does not have a touch screen or a backlight. I would prefer both. I just didn't want to spend big money. this the one that I got

costs about sixty-five dollars. So not not really expensive at all. I will be returning it because I just don't use it, but I kind of wanted to play with it. And if anybody is looking for a means of being able to read books, articles, you have to push everything to this. So unlike a Kindle, you know, you don't have your Kindle library that you can hop on or your iPad where you have, you know, you have Apple's books app.

But the beauty of this is this is all this does. It's a single purpose device. It uses e Ink, you know, which is pretty standard and really good quality as far as reading text is concerned. It's a really it's a really great great tool. basically, depending on the size of a paragraph, get, you know, and and

And the size that you need to be able to read it in the font is

Tom Anderson (44:28)
Age dependent.

Jeff Battersby (44:29)
Yeah, it's age dependent font size. You might get three words per page or you might get a couple paragraphs.

Tom Anderson (44:34)
It's like a teleprompter at that point.

Jeff Battersby (44:37)
th the couple of hassles. There's no real configuration on device. So i in order to do it, there's an app, you take the app, and you you know, change your font size and you know, upload your your books to the device.

does do it over the air, you know, that's a nice thing. So you do not it's

Tom Anderson (44:54)
Like Bluetooth or Wi Fi or something.

Jeff Battersby (44:57)
using Wi-Fi. I don't know what version of Wi-Fi this is because books are take for freaking ever to get there. but it honestly a a pretty cool little device if you're looking for something that keeps you from, you know, doing the same thing that Tom said earlier. You know, you open up

something you're reading, you get a notification. When you get the notification, you bop over to whatever it is that you're bopping over to. This gets no notifications. Little e reader device fits literally in the palm of your hand. Like that no no joke. Teeny tiny. so E X T E I N K e reader. I do like it. I just am not gonna read e books. You know, that's not gonna be I really am not. I

Tom Anderson (45:45)
You're not an ebook person to start with. So but if somebody is, they may

might be a good fit, yeah.

Jeff Battersby (45:49)
This is s

right, yeah. And you're not, you know, all those Kindles and whatever else, you know, you're you're tied to a a system that wants to take your attention elsewhere. And this does not do that at all. So highly recommend, super inexpensive. you know, a little bit onerous to get your your files onto it. But other than that, I like it.

If I if I were an ebook guy, I would keep this.

Tom Anderson (46:20)
And interst what was interesting to me, not long because it was right after the show two weeks ago, you mentioned that, I think, and then you

Jeff Battersby (46:27)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (46:28)
ordered it and it came in pretty quickly. But as you were, you know, experimenting with that and I was starting to get into like watching the YouTube videos for notebooks and things like the little pocket journal from Lockby and stuff, there were a number of videos that I saw that people were carrying one of those inside their little pocket jar.

Jeff Battersby (46:48)
interesting.

Tom Anderson (46:49)
Yeah. So

Jeff Battersby (46:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (46:51)
fits neatly inside of there.

Jeff Battersby (46:52)
It I'm sure it does. It's it's way smaller than than one of the Field Note Snowbooks. it is it is ever so slightly taller than the width of a of of one of the Field Note snowbooks. It's crazy how small it is.

Tom Anderson (47:10)
Yeah, tiny. Yep.

Jeff Battersby (47:12)
the temptation for me is to keep it just because it's cool.

I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna box it up and send

Tom Anderson (47:16)
Ha ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (47:17)
it. But it's like, this is really kinda cool. I like this. But I'll wait I'll wait

Tom Anderson (47:19)
I don't know, you should see if it fits in your lockbee. Maybe it'll be a good good place to keep it.

Jeff Battersby (47:23)
one more day and then I'll use the credit from this to pay for the lobby.

Tom Anderson (47:28)
There you go. Sir.

Jeff Battersby (47:30)
Tom Anderson,

we've we've burned in another of another forty five minutes of people's time. And as always, we're super grateful for you spending the time with us that you do. So thank you for showing up for us as we show up for you every couple of weeks. a reminder that our show music is from Psychokinetics Celsius Seven and highly recommend that you check them out.

Well worth listening to. Good music. And good bumping. Really decent music. and then also you might also want to check out Cal Rissian. A little filthier, but a lot more fun.

Tom Anderson (48:13)
Yeah. Not for the kids.

Jeff Battersby (48:16)
not for the kids is exactly is exactly correct. Random Martin designed as our show art. We're grateful for that. And we're again grateful that you have come here

To listen to us. Tom, we can find you where?

Tom Anderson (48:32)
Tom Fanderson dot com and on threads at Tom Anderson.

Jeff Battersby (48:37)
Awesome. And I'm in all those places at Reyes Point. So you can find me there. All right, Tom.

Tom Anderson (48:45)
All right. Well, thanks again for joining us for this episode. We will be back in two weeks. So until then, have a great rest of your day or your night.

Jeff Battersby (48:54)
See ya.