In Praise of Ugly Notebooks

If your notebook is not at least a little bit ugly, I don’t think I trust you.

Notebooks can be beautiful too, of course, but a notebook that is only beautiful is like a person that is only beautiful: a performance.

A notebook should be ugly, at least sometimes, because life is ugly, at least sometimes. A good notebook, for me, is a companion through life.

An ugly notebook meets you where you are.

When a notebook is ugly, it is a safe place to begin—to try things that do not work but might become things that do.

A messy notebook is interesting because perfection is boring.

An ugly notebook is better than no notebook at all. It exists.

My notebook is like a garden filled with flowers, vegetables, and weeds. Some of the peppers are deformed, but they are still nourishing.

If you keep an ugly notebook, it is not a problem when your infant daughter vomits in it or coffee stains its pages.

Ugly notebooks are important tools because good aesthetics are not a prerequisite for good ideas.

An ugly notebook has nothing to prove to anyone, and by extension neither do you.

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Here are some photos of my most recently completed notebook between January and May.

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Thank you for reading! I mean it.

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Until next time,
Nathaniel