Unfortunately, these Traveler’s Company ballpoints in the exclusive colors were exclusive pre-orders from the San Francisco Pen Show. If they sold well, hopefully they may be coming to the standard lineup?

My Annual Paen for the Ballpoint Pen

November 9, 2022

Now that we’re all fully saturated with fountain pen purchases and fountain pen-related content after last week’s Fountain Pen Day celebration, why don’t we talk about something a bit different? I often get asked, “If you’re not writing with a fountain pen, then what are you using?” The answer is that it’s almost always either a ballpoint pen or a pencil, with ballpoints stealing an increased role from the gel pens and rollerballs in my collection. Today I’ll discuss five reasons why I enjoy ballpoint pens, particularly for work-related writing and annotation.

Ballpoints are true “write anywhere” pens. If you need to get work done, and you don’t want to worry about the kind of paper you’re using, the ballpoint gives you the most versatility. For many, office copy paper is tissue-thin (like mine), and sometimes you’ll want to annotate something like a shiny-sheet magazine article or professional journal. Ballpoint is pretty much your only option.
Ballpoint ink dries quickly and offers permanence. Taking a lot of notes on documents where you need to flip through pages, and don’t want to worry about your fountain pen ink smearing? Not only does ballpoint ink dry near-instantaneously, but it’s also waterproof, which is why many in the medical and legal professions are actually required to use ballpoint pens on a daily basis in certain contexts.
Needle-tip ballpoint pens are excellent for annotation. I would say that half of the ballpoints I currently have in rotation are Japanese needle-tip ballpoints that I use to write in my Plotters (particularly the Mini-5 model), and to take notes in books that I’m reading. My number one recommendation for this category has always been the Traveler’s Company Brass Ballpoint and the arrival of my pen show special editions, pictured above, is actually what prompted this post. Smaller pens such as the Traveler’s ballpoint and the Penco Perfection series clip easily to a pocket notebook or paperback, allowing for portability and ease of deployment, but if you prefer something larger, consider any of the pens that use the Ohto needle-tip ballpoint refill, such as the Mark’style “Tous les Jours.”
Refills can last for years, and are relatively inexpensive. Though more expensive on a per-cartridge basis than fountain pen ink cartridges, ballpoint refills last much, much longer. (They similarly last much longer than liquid-ink rollerball refills, which I consider to be among the worst value propositions.) I currently have ballpoint pen cartridges that have been in use for years, with the “Goliath” cartridge in the workhorse Caran d’Ache 849 leading the way, and needle-tip pens using so little ink to the point that the refill in my first Traveler’s Ballpoint is still halfway full despite three years of use.
Ballpoint pens are largely distraction free. I say “largely” only because many ballpoints are click-pens, and the knock can serve as a fidget device both annoying and fascinating, but a ballpoint often allows me to focus on highly technical work or writing more than a fountain pen. Despite best intentions, it’s easy to find yourself more focused on the nib, ink, finish, etc. of a fountain pen than on the writing you’re actually doing. With a ballpoint, there just aren’t as many variables.

For all of these reasons and more, if someone asks me for a “nice pen recommendation” for a person who’s NOT already a known fountain pen user, that recommendation will almost always include one or more ballpoint options. As we enter the holiday gift season, it’s especially important to pay close attention to the needs of the person you’re buying for - while many of us love our fountain pens, they aren’t for everyone, and a nice ballpoint could be the best option for them. Stay tuned for more recommendations and discussion in the full holiday gift guide, coming later this month.

Ballpoint pens I’ve used over the past week, from left: The Caran d’Ache 849 (first two); Rotring 600 ballpoint, old Levenger edition; Studio Neat Mark One (with Schmidt Easyflow ballpoint refill); Bic Cristal; Caran d’Ache “Infinite” ballpoint, which I actually consider one of the biggest steals on the market right now; the Lamy 2000 ballpoint, and my two new Traveler’s pens.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by sales through the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon program. If you’re interested in shopping for a quality ballpoint pen for yourself or a gift recipient, we’d appreciate your support!

No, that’s not how a Traveler’s Notebook is “supposed” to look.

Hacking Stationery: Don't Be Afraid to "Personalize" Your Products! (They're Yours, After All)

October 29, 2022

One of my favorite topics to write about - though I don’t necessarily do it often - is “hacking” stationery products. As it’s used in the pen community, “hacking” can mean anything from using a different brand of paper refill in your Traveler’s Notebook to “actual hacking” away at a pen or notebook with an X-Acto knife to create a “personalized” product. Many people are understandably hesitant to experiment in this way, but if you go slowly and don’t attempt anything too crazy, the rewards are great and the risk relatively low.

One of the simplest “hacks” of all is a hole punch, creating your own refills from the paper of your choice for use in ring or disc-based notebook systems.

A Few Things to Keep In Mind When Modifying Your Own Products

Start Small. Maybe it’s trimming down a favorite brand of notebook to fit a specific case/cover, mixing two favorite inks together to create a new color, or clipping the end of a favorite gel refill so that it’s just a touch shorter and will fit in your preferred machined pen. Either way, these are small “hacks” that are easily accomplished at home with tools/materals that you have around the house, and will build your confidence to try more complex projects.
For More Complex Projects, or Those Involving Expensive Pens, Do Your Research. There’s a wealth of information out there on the internet, whether on pen-specific forms and blogs or on YouTube or Tiktok. For example, if you’re considering swapping nibs or feeds on pens from two different brands, the chances are somebody (like me) has done that before and failed, and has passed along and documented their wisdom, or lack thereof, for posterity. (I’ve linked to a post on my adventures swapping Platinum nibs into Opus 88 pens below.)
Don’t Worry About “Hurting Resale Value”. A common question I get from someone hacking a pen is “what will this do to the resale value”? Honestly, if you’re having to ask yourself this question, and you’ve purchased a pen for investment purposes, you shouldn’t be modifying it (or probably even writing with it). On the other hand, if you bought your pens to use them, you should feel free to do whatever you think will make you more likely to use the pen, and make the experience more enjoyable. Which brings me to…
You Will Void The Warranty. Recognize that you are taking some degree of risk anytime you modify a pen or any other product in a way not contemplated by the manufacturer. In other words, while it’s pretty difficult to break a pen beyond all hope of repair, if it happens in the context of you creating the Frankenpen of your dreams it’s going to be your fault, and you shouldn’t expect the manufacturer to replace it.

At the end of the day, if you purchased these products to use, and if you’re goal is to actually use them for work, pleasure, or otherwise, you shouldn’t be afraid to make changes that will allow you to maximize your own enjoyment and the overall experience.

And One More Thing… (A New Hack!)

An hour before I left on vacation a couple of weeks ago, an idea struck me. I recently discovered the Platinum Desk Pen on a recommendation from my friend Ana over at the Well-Appointed Desk. It has a smooth extra-fine gold-plated steel nib, which you can’t seem to find on any of Platinum’s other low-cost offerings like the Preppy or the Plaisir. The good thing is that the Desk Pen uses the exact same feed as these other models, and you can swap them out by gently pulling both the nib and feed to remove them, and inserting the nib from the Desk Pen into the Plaisir (and vice-versa), as shown in the photos.

Guide to Notebook Systems, Part IV: Single Notebooks, or the "Non-System System"

October 22, 2022

In the first installment of our ongoing “Guide to Notebook Systems” series, we discussed a few different categories, one of which was a “single bound notebook” category. This group, which I’ll discuss today, includes the Midori MD and Stàlogy brands. While you can argue that it’s a broad catch-all, the main reason I personally consider this particular group to be self-contained notebook “systems”, as opposed to simply different brands of notebooks (such as Rhodia or Clairefontaine), is the well-developed ecosystem of brand-specific accessories that allow you to customize your experience. If you stick with a particular notebook long-term, you can take advantage of these accessories to offer you more structure (though perhaps not as much customizability as a system like Traveler’s Notebook might offer). You can also avail yourself of the dedicated community of users who regularly share their tips and hacks for maximizing use and enjoyment of your favorite system.

Midori’s covers are known for their durability and relatively reasonable price points. Left is the “Paper” cover, which uses a thick Japanese craft paper that many believe ages like leather. On the right is my Gfeller undyed natural leather, which isn’t Midori-branded but ages in a similar manner to the Midori goat leather.

What Separates a “Notebook System” from “Just a Notebook”?

Before we get started, I need to insert a disclaimer here - everything I’ve been writing about in this particular series, from the categories themselves to recommendations as to whom each system might be a good fit for, represents my opinion. Since there are so many different notebook brands out there, these categories of different types of notebook systems are a construct I created for purposes of making sense of the different options and organizing my recommendations on the blog. That said, I consider a true notebook “system” to require, at a minimum, the ability to pair the notebook itself (or notebooks) with brand-specific accessories that you can carry over from book to book, hopefully year-after-year.

In other words, it implies more continuity and more of a long-term commitment to a specific notebook than simply keeping, say, a bullet journal and using whatever notebook you have on hand. At the same time, you can still consider these types of systems as “Non-system Systems”, in the sense that the notetaking and organization itself takes place in a standard notebook, and doesn’t require you to adopt any particular method of organizing your notes, such as buying a brand-specific hole punch, adopting a new organization strategy, or figuring out the best way to rig together different Traveler’s Notebook refills.

Midori MD Undyed goat leather, prior to any use. This particular product is the A5 vertical sleeve, designed to hold standard A5 MD and MD Light notebooks.

Example: The Midori MD Line of Notebooks and Accessories

The Midori MD line is probably the best example of what I’m talking about here (or at least the example that I’m personally the most familiar with). You can of course use Midori MD notebooks and other products on their own, without ever delving into the “system” aspect, and they’re excellent for that purpose. MD paper is among the most fountain pen friendly, relatively inexpensive, and it comes in most formats and sizes, ranging from A6 to A4 bound notebooks to writing pads to sticky notes, as well as lined, grid, dot grid, blank, and specialty layouts such as the A5 “Framed” Journal and the 365-day Codex, day-to-a-page journal.

Where this particular system begins to get interesting, at least for me, is when you delve into the available accessories. Midori makes a line of covers specially designed to fit both the MD and MD Light notebooks, in options that combine the utilitarian (the inexpensive plastic covers), the unique (durable Japanese paper covers, which actually age in a manner similar to leather), and the outright luxurious (natural undyed goat leather covers, which take on an amazing patina with long-term use). You can also use Midori’s brass tabs and notebook dividers to create a multi-subject notebook or to mark important pages, and Midori sells fountain-pen friendly sticky notes and even calendar/diary stickers if you want to incorporate planner functionality into your notebook. All of the paper products use the same MD paper (even the sticky notes and diary stickers) for a consistent experience across the line.

Advantages to Using This Sort of Notebook System

Flexible, unstructured layout that allows you to experiment with different notetaking systems and otherwise use your notebook however you like.
Notebooks and covers typically come in a variety of nonproprietary sizing, including A6, A5, and the somewhat uncommon A4.
Accessories such as notebook tabs, dividers, and even covers can typically be used with other stationery products or systems (though YMMV with the covers, as there can be slight variations even in standard sizing between brands requiring you to trim the notebook).

Who This Type of Notebook System is For

Someone who doesn’t necessarily need to compartmentalize their notes or writing in a way that requires moving individual pages or sections. If this sounds like you, you may want to check out a ring-based or modular system.
Someone who doesn’t need a lot of accessories such as pouches, moveable pen loops, dedicated planner inserts, etc., but at the same time enjoys having a dedicated cover and a few other items designed to work with their favorite notebook.
Someone who organizes their journals and notes by notebook, and keeps separate notebooks dedicated to specific subjects, yet still wants consistency in the form of interchangeable covers, tabs, etc.

I’ll plan to discuss further in a future post in this series, but I am a HUGE proponent of borrowing accessories from different notebook systems and customizing your own notebook to best suit your own purpose. (Shown here: a Traveler’s Notebook with a cut-down Stàlogy notebook insert, divided into sections using Midori sticker tabs)

Where to Buy Midori and Similar Brand Recommendations

As I mentioned, I used Midori as the example in this post because it’s the brand I’m most familiar with. The purpose of this post isn’t to serve as an advertisement for Midori - though I obviously think Midori is great. The goal is give you an idea of the depth of options available within a specific brand. As a relatively long-time Midori retailer, I have access to the different size and paper options, as well as the accessories. There are similar options out there on the market, some of which I sell directly and many of which I don’t, including Stàlogy, Maruman Mnemosyne, Nanami Paper’s “Seven Seas” and “Cafe Note” series, the Baron Fig Confidant, and even arguably the Hobonichi Techo and Kokuyo Jibun Techo Planners, which were designed as planners but many people use as notebooks and journals. Go with what works best for you!

Guide to Notebook Systems, Part III: Traveler's Notebook and the "Modular" Approach

October 1, 2022

Welcome to the third Saturday installment of my “Guide to Notebook Systems” Series! Today we’ll be talking about Traveler’s Company, a brand I’ve actually written about a lot, since it’s been on the market for many years, and the Traveler’s Notebook, which represents one of the longest-standing items in my stationery toolkit. The Traveler’s Notebook falls into what I would call the “notebook cover plus modular refill” category of notebook systems, meaning that the central component is the leather cover starter kit, which you can customize by adding different refill booklets and functional accessories, all held in place with elastic cords. The main difference between these types of systems and a “System Techo” like Plotter is, of course, that you have to operate at the “notebook level” rather than with individual pages.

Traveler's Notebook Stuffed and Slim — My two Traveler’s Notebooks, which contain both my pen show journal (top) and work notebook (bottom).

The Traveler’s Notebook is versatile, and I’ve used it in many different ways over the years as my needs have changed. When I first started out, I used it as a traditional paper planner. The Traveler’s Company undated “Weekly + Memo” planner refills usually lasted me a little over six months, and if you prefer the day-to-a-page format, the “Free Diary,” lasted around three. These days, I don’t use a paper planner to keep a calendar, so my Traveler’s Notebooks have morphed into more of a “journal”. Here’s what I mean:

For work (as in, my day job), I like to keep a written record of what I work on each day. My current writing setup isn’t a Traveler’s Notebook refill, but rather a cut-down Stalogy half-year journal that I’ve combined with these Midori MD Calendar stickers and section divider stickers to create some sort of “planner”-BuJo (bullet journal) hybrid. Essentially, I’ll use 2-3 pages for a week and write brief summaries of how I’ve spent my time and what I’ve accomplished on each day, while also including important meeting notes and tracking longer term tasks. At the back of my “work” Traveler’s Notebook, I’ve included a standard blank refill that’s essentially used as scratch paper.
I also keep a second “personal” Traveler’s Notebook that I recently added, which is one of the “Traveler’s Hotel” 2022 limited editions. I’m more of a hotel enthusiast than an aviation or train buff, so the choice was fairly easy. For 2022, this notebook has become my “pen show” journal, and it contains stickers, photos, writing samples, and personal notes from all of my pen show travel. I’m honestly not sure what I will use this for in 2023, or whether I will consolidate my Traveler’s Notebook carry under a single cover as I rely more on Plotter.

Traveler’s Company undated planner refills are insanely versatile. The Weekly+Memo Refill is a favorite.

So who is this sort of notebook system for, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?

Someone who likes to journal, especially creatively. The major advantage to these modular systems, and especially established ones like Traveler’s Notebook, is that there is a wide array of existing refills and accessories for pretty much any use case. Would you like to watercolor in your journal? There’s a refill for that. Prefer thicker drawing or sketch paper? Ditto. There are even kraft paper refills for scrapbooking.
Someone who travels a lot (hence the name) and doesn’t want to carry multiple notebooks with them. With modular systems, you can carry your planner, journal, and sketchbook all in a single cover yet in separate “notebooks”. There are a variety of pouch and folder accessories to carry things like printed tickets, itineraries, and receipts. The Standard Traveler’s Notebook has a tall, narrow format that’s easy to slip into a bag, and the smaller Passport version is even more compact. If you prefer something that uses larger refills with more writing surface, both the Lochby Field Journal and the Roterfaden covers operate on a similar principle (though Roterfaden uses clips instead of cords).
Someone who doesn’t need to move around, file, or dispose of individual pages of notes. This is what makes the Traveler’s Notebook system difficult for me to use for things like meeting and research notes, and why I will likely lean more heavily on “System Techo” ring-based systems in the future for these purposes. But if you have fairly specialized job responsibilities, or don’t need to segregate your notes by a large number of clients or projects, a Traveler’s-style system may work just fine.

If the “tall narrow” notebook format isn’t your thing, Lochby (shown here) and Roterfaden both make A5 modular covers capable of holding multiple refills (or even multiple full-size notebooks).

Guide to Notebook Systems, Part II: Plotter is NOT a Planner!

September 24, 2022

Last week’s post, “Guide to Notebook Systems/System Techo, Part I”, offered a brief introduction to different types of notebook systems on the market. One of those categories was the “System Techo,” a Japanese term for a notebook system built around a ringed binder. “System Techo” is not as popular or pervasive in the U.S. as it is in Japan. At one point, Filofax was extremely popular, yet most consider it to be a planner/calendar as opposed to a broader notebook or information management system, and dismiss it as something outdated that they’ll never use. The reality is that ring-based systems can be extremely powerful tools for creativity and organization, especially for those of us who enjoy working on looseleaf paper and notepads but lack a convenient way to organize and archive our ideas. The advantages to a system like this is that you can move around and group together individual pages of notes, as opposed to more modular systems that limit you to bound refills.

With a hole punch, a ring binder can become a powerful tool for collecting and organizing all the ideas many of us collect on random scraps of paper.

What Is Plotter? (Hint: Don’t Write It Off as “Just a Planner System”)

The star of this year’s San Francisco Pen Show was Plotter, a Japanese notebook system that can be used as a planner or organizer, but is actually designed to be something much more open-ended. Since I own three Plotter binders/notebooks, all in different sizes and with different use cases, I plan to walk you through the design of the system, give a brief overview of how it’s intended to be used, and talk a bit about how I’ve been using it in my own life. Whether Plotter is something that could work for you, well, that’s up to you!

Plotter Refills Notepads and Notebooks — Plotter refills and notepads are well designed, and I especially love the bound notepads that can be used as stand-alone notebooks with removable sheets.

The Plotter system is organized around three main components. First, you have the excellent paper, which is DesignPhil’s own proprietary formula, and which I would compare to a slightly thinner version of Midori MD. While certain refills ship in packages of looseleaf sheets, Plotter refills also come bound in pads or notebooks. This convenient design allows you to use the refill as a stand-alone notebook that you can carry with you, tearing out individual sheets to incorporate into your binder as needed. Yes, there is also a diary refill, so you can use your Plotter as a traditional six-ring planner, but that’s not necessarily how the Plotter system was conceived. (More on that below.)

Plotter paper comes in a variety of rulings (dot, lined, grid, and blank), so that you can assemble a notebook with multiple types of paper to use whenever different needs arise.

The second component of the Plotter system is the binder (i.e.,the leather notebook cover). Currently, Plotter users in the U.S. can select from five different sizes: A5, Bible, Narrow, Mini, and Mini 5. The Plotter binder itself is a fairly simple six-ring organizer sold by itself. To build out your Plotter into something that you can personally use everyday, you will use the paper refills and “Accessory Refills” to customize the system. As you can imagine, this is both a blessing and a curse: A blessing because you aren’t necessarily forced into purchasing an overly complex notebook system if all you want is a nice leather binder that holds looseleaf sheets; a curse because if you do want to take advantage of all the (excellent) Plotter components and accessories, you can spend money quickly. For that reason, I would recommend starting simply, purchasing your binder, maybe a set of dividers, and an elastic cord and/or penholder. You can always add more functionality as you go. (Note: Plotter ring spacing is NOT proprietary, so if you have, for example, Filofax refills, dividers, rulers, etc. in the correct size, they should fit your Plotter. Similarly, if you have a Filofax binder and merely want to test out the Plotter accessories and organizational system, everything should fit your existing cover, though no guarantees.)

All Plotter binders feature six rings and a metal bar on the spine. It’s a minimalist design that I find quite attractive.

Finally, the third Plotter component is the “archiving” aspect of the system. Because the Plotter binder is, by design, not necessarily all that capacious, you may need a larger notebook or refill binder to hold spare refills and older notes and other materials that are no longer immediately relevant but that you still want to keep. Plotter does sell a refill binder for archiving, but you can easily use something like a spare six-ring planner with the same ring size. (I have an older Filofax that I’ve been using to hold A5 Plotter sheets and spare refills that don’t currently live in my binder.)

Adding a hole punch (like the inexpensive Rapesco version shown here) will allow you to use paper that you already have on hand. I’m a huge fan of Midori MD Cotton, and I’ve been punching holes in sheets from a standard A5 pad and using it in my Plotter. Also pictured here is the A5 Filofax I use for archiving and refill storage.

How the Plotter System Is Designed to Be Used

To start, there is no “correct” way to use Plotter, or any notebook system or stationery item for that matter. You should incorporate your stationery into your life in a way that works for you, and which will give you maximum utility and enjoyment. That said, there is a specific philosophy informing the design of the system, and when I was at the San Francisco Pen Show last month, I had the opportunity to sit in on a Plotter seminar in which April from DesignPhil (and Penguin’s Creative and Stationery Cafe!) explained the general principles behind Plotter:

Facilitating idea capture and note taking
Refining your notes and ideas, with a focus on identifying the most essential ideas and/or information to keep on you at all time
Providing a flexible, customizable platform that allows you to work creatively in a format that works specifically for you

In other words, the Plotter system was built to make it easy to (1) capture notes and ideas on paper, (2) organize (or at least retain) those ideas in the binder while you develop them, (3) periodically review and revisit your ideas, archiving what you need while disposing of what you don’t. The slim binder design is therefore intentional, encouraging a minimalist approach to notetaking and workflow. This can be a lifesaver for work projects that have a tendency to spiral out of control. How many of you (like me) have notebooks stuffed with months’ or years’ worth of research and meeting notes, of which a dozen or so pages are actually useful to keep long-term?

My three Plotter notebooks: Mini 5 (top); Narrow (center), and A5 (bottom).

How I Use My Three Plotter Notebooks

So who do I think Plotter is for? For someone involved in too many different things (like me) who tends to be kind of scatterbrained (like me) and who works primarily on pads of paper and notepads for the majority of their writing (like me). I’m both an organized and, at the same time, an extremely disorganized person. While I’m generally “organized” in the sense that I do make a regular effort to collect my thoughts related to different projects I’m working on and group them together in some way, I feel disorganized in the sense that I’m seemingly always working on too many things at the same time, often in the same notebook or notepad, and sometimes I’m not sure where the ideas and concepts I’m working on at the time will go, or even whether they ultimately will amount to anything at all. It can feel like I’m carrying around a chaotic mess of paper and it stresses me out. Enter the Plotter as a “creative inbox”, providing just enough structure to keep me sane. I heard someone describe Plotter as “the place to loosely you organize thoughts and ideas until you figure out where they will live long-term,” and that’s an excellent way to describe the system. I have three Plotters:

Plotter A5 (My main “inbox,” containing notes for T.G.S. content and other personal research and writing projects)
Plotter Narrow (Notes, lists, and ideas relating to T.G.S. business operations)
Plotter Mini 5 (I use as a wallet and a pocket notebook/jotter that I carry around at all times)

Each of my Plotters includes a handful of “Project Manager” folders, which allows you to organize sheets by topic. The folders themselves are hole-punched, so if you want to devote a folder to a specific project and move it in and out of your binder as you work on it, you can just pull the entire folder and stick it in your archiving system.

Using my own workflow as an example, I typically think of a half-dozen or so ideas for T.G.S content over the course of any given day. I might sketch out the idea on a sheet of A5 paper, stick it in the “TGS Articles” section of my A5 Plotter (grouped with other similar ideas if applicable), and either build the idea out in the Plotter or transfer it to a dedicated notebook or to the computer if it’s something I actually want to publish or incorporate into one of my longer-form writing projects. Every so often, I’ll review the notes in the Plotter and decide whether they warrant archiving or recycling, if they don’t seem like something I’ll be working on in the near future.

My Plotter Mini 5 goes everywhere with me. This particular notebook is used less for content management than for lists and reference notes that I want to have on me at all times (lists of books to check out from the library, pens I’m looking for at shows, etc.), as well as just a general purpose jotter with removable pages.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

Plotter offers flexibility in a convenient and elegant format, and I personally enjoy using this system more than other ringed organizer systems I have tried. I own three different Plotters, and have been using one of them for well over a year, so for me it has staying power. Over the past month, I’ve seen my Mini 5 notebook in particular become a core piece of my everyday carry, and my A5 Plotter also sees daily use. While Plotter is not an inexpensive system to buy into, as long as I actually continue to use the Plotter regularly over a multi-year period, it will be well worth the money spent. The refills themselves are not actually that expensive, and priced commensurately with other paper products of similar quality, so any expense is mainly associated with the initial setup.

Plotter Accessories: Lifter with Elastic Band — If I had to recommend that new Plotter users purchase one accessory, it would be one of the “lifters” with either a pen loop or an elastic band. The “Lifters” can be placed anywhere in the notebook to serve as either a divider, or as a pencil board or firm surface for writing. For a discussion of which pens fit the Plotter, see this post.

Currently, Plotter can only be purchased through the Plotter USA store, which recently restocked after selling out in the wake of the post-San Francisco Pen Show hype. Binders range anywhere from $96 to $250, depending on the size and the type of leather you select. Looseleaf refills are generally priced in the $6 to $8 range, and Plotter-branded stand-alone notebooks and A4 writing pads are priced at $18. (Tip: you can punch an A4 sheet across the top and fold it in half to include in an A5 binder.) Accessories such as the penholder and elastic “lifters,” project manager dividers, etc. range from $6 to $15, approximately.

Again, the Plotter system is not inexpensive, but these prices are comparable both to other binder systems (like Filofax) and high-end Japanese leather notebook covers such as those from Midori. Moreover, the cost of a $250 notebook setup that you wind up using all-day, every day for years vanishes into the background pretty quickly. That said, anything can - and should - be considered “too expensive” if you never use it.

System Techo can be a powerful tool for those who like to work on multiple projects within a single binder, and value the flexibility to move around individual sheets of paper. In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at other notebook systems that use different refill options and are built around different philosophies.

Disclaimer: I purchased the A5 and Mini 5 Plotters with my own funds at full price, though I was gifted the Narrow version a year ago as part of Plotter’s U.S. market testing. I was not compensated for this review and this post does not contain any affiliate links.