The road to hell is paved with unused notebooks

or, overcoming perfectionism and just starting the damn thing.

Dear reader,

How are things? If you’re reading this in January, is your new year off to a good start? Have your resolutions disappeared as quickly as your Christmas choc? Or are they lingering like those last remaining Christmas decorations (yes, I may or may not have forgotten to take my lights down…)

Don’t listen to Ross. Whether you’ve stuck to them or not - congrats! We’re still surviving even if we’re not thriving, and that’s pretty damn great.

As for me, my resolutions are (were):

1. No chocolate.
   No chocolate.*
   *unless from Hotel Chocolat.

   As of 10:33 on the 11th January, I’ve resisted the urge to polish off the last few Celebrations as I’ve realised that Milky Ways aren’t all that and I really don’t need them. I have instead eaten 1x tub of Hotel Chocolat chocolate drops that I bought on sale because they had a Santa on the front. Have I failed? No. Because Hotel Chocolat is just that good.

2. Don’t put so much pressure on myself.

   Try not to* put so much pressure on myself.
   *No pressure.

   I failed this one before I’d even started. Telling myself' ‘don’t put pressure on myself’ is literally putting pressure on myself.

3. Post on Substack every week.

   Post on Substack every week*.
   *If I can.

   I was hoping to post every week, but God has it been a tiring one. Instead of writing, I’ve given myself time to rest, time to settle back into work, time to plan and just more time in general.

Look, this is not procrastination. I am simply shifting my goalposts because hey - sometimes things change. We can be busy/tired/ill/our prioritise change and that is A-okay. Which, dear reader, brings me very nicely and conveniently onto…

Overcoming perfectionism and just starting the damn thing (the Substack proper starts here)

I was sorting through my room the other day and found not one, not two, but eleven notebooks.

A notebook lurking in a long forgotten backpack, a notebook hiding under the bed, four notebooks in a cupboard and two little notebooks in my bedside table. And none of them filled more than a few pages.

The road to hell is paved with unused notebooks.

So why, oh why, do I (and by extension you, we and all of us collectively) keep buying them?

Well, we simply can’t resist the potential they represent. That perfect untarnished cover, those blank pages waiting to be filled with plans or projects. They are each a new year’s resolution in their own way - the promise of beginning again and starting something new.

But we don’t.

Instead, we forget them, neglect them, write one page and rip it out, because it’s never going to be as good as we hope. So, rather than admit to ourselves that we’ve left something unfinished, we hide the old notebook away until we buy another one, renewed with those same good intentions.

And the cycle continues.

Just! Use! Them!

Crikey, it got a bit too real up there - I think I just self-therapised. Don’t worry though, there are plenty of pretty notebooks in this section and the promise of filling them too.

Contrary to what you might think, this post is not here to stop you buying notebooks. Whether you rediscover one you already have or get a new one, it doesn’t matter…

Fill them with your thoughts, your plans, your dreams, your ideas, that book you’ve been meaning to write, the diary you’ve been meaning to start. It doesn’t matter if they look bad because I promise, one pretty page feels a whole lot worse than a dog-eared-ink-stained-coffee-ringed-cat-chewed-falling-apart notebook that’s home to wonderful words pulled from your brain and onto the page. It just means more, and it’s literally what it was made for.

If you do want to buy a new one and finally put pen to paper, I’ve rounded up a few of my faves for you below:

Papier x Liberty Ianthe Hardback Lined Notebook (for the fancy writer in your life)

LEUCHTTURM 1917 Notebook Monocle (simple, chic and timeless)

VENT for Change A5 Make A Mark Notebook, Yellow (made from recycled materials so you can do good and write good well)

So, now you’re ready to fill those pages and start something amazing (even if it’s a bit shit to start with). Feel free to share how many notebooks you may or may not be hoarding (no shame here) and what you’ll be filling them with.

See you on the ‘stack soon.

~ Cesca