Ep 385:

Back when I was doing my book tour for Slow Productivity in the 2024, I had an idea that I was trying to make progress on. And I grabbed at the last minute before I headed out the door a small single purpose notebook. And I carried that notebook with me wherever I went. And when I would go to grab dinner or go to grab coffee, I would actually often not even have my phone with me, but bring that one notebook that was dedicated to trying to make progress on that problem. And it really worked. So I recorded a podcast episode back then where I where I lay out my whole theory of single purpose notebooks, why using a small notebook dedicated to a single problem instead of your phone is a fantastic general strategy for making progress on the ideas or issues or personal problems or personal development that you are most interested in. I mean, after that experience, I actually bought, just so you have seen this, a giant essentially case full of these notebooks. So now I can always grab one when I have a new problem to work on. Anyways, I wanted to revisit that episode because I get into the weeds of how this works, when you should use it, and how to get the most value out of it. And so that's what we're gonna do today. I'm going to replay this classic episode. This originally aired in March 2024 about using single purpose notebooks. I think you're really going to enjoy it. So my recent book tour, I didn't have room in my bag. So I was packing for two weeks. I didn't have room to bring my normal, remarkable digital notebook, but I knew there was a particular idea that I wanted to work on related to a new book that I'm just starting to ideate about. So at the last minute, as I was running out the door, I grabbed the Fields Note notebook. It was a a small pocket sized notebook that I had lying around. The first 10 pages were already taken up with actually sketches from my kids. But I just grabbed this and I brought it with me to work on, and it worked remarkably well. I brought it with me in my pocket almost everywhere I went. I worked on this book idea in bars, at hotel breakfasts, waiting in recording studios to start recording interviews in my hotel room, on the beach in Santa Monica, as well as walking next to Lady Bird Lake in Austin. I ended up capturing some really interesting thoughts in here. I thought it was very successful. So this idea of a small notebook dedicated to a single creative idea, what I'm calling a single purpose notebook, is something that's now starting to fascinate me. So I wanna explore it in today's deep dive. What's going on with this idea? Why does it work? Where does it …