When I first started to look for what Plotter to get I landed on the A5, just because that is what I always do.

Then this summer I started to think differently, and big ass process on sizes started.

How I usually go about things like this is to see what I am using, and how much I can decrease size before it is a problem or if increasing makes anything better.

Based on how I use the pages in my full sized Travelers Notebook, something with the width of the Mini 5 and height for Bible/Regular would most likely be the ideal. But the difference between them are not that large, there are however times, like with small slings etc where narrow notebooks make things easier.

So I was filling out this week goals today and I realized I’m about 50% into a refill, and thinking: already?!

Then I started to look into it and realized it probably will last me like a month or 4 weeks.

I think it is a good length. But it also highlights why I want to replace this with a binder soon ish. Now I’d have to re-write my yearly goals 12 times and each quarter goals three times.

I guess I have used part of it for a week now, and the whole thing for 5 ish days.

What I like about it is that it is much smaller and lighter. I also like that it is fewer things than before.

What I don’t like about it is that travelers notebook refills don’t open flat.

I just kind of got sick of dragging around a bunch of A5 notebooks, and ordered some refills for my Travelers Notebooks.

Currently I have two dotted refills in my small one, one for random notes / capture and one for my Bullet Journal. And in the big one I have three refills. One weekly planner, one dot grid for goals / daily plans and an accordion one I glue pictures in.

It is much less things that the previous, and have reduced weight and size a bunch, and I have realized some things that will be useful if I order a Plotter.

The thing I love about the ISO paper sizes, and in particular the A-size papers is that A0 is the biggest, if fold that page over you have two A1 pages, if you fold one of them over (after cutting it) you have two A2 pages etc.

So if you have an A4 printer it is really easy to print things on A4 and cut it down to work with something A5 or A6.

For other sizes you always either end up with waste or weirdness depending on if the printer lets you do weird things.

I’m back to having a permeant desk at work for the first time since last June. So I’m back to using the Pilot Hi Tech Coleto that I bought last year.

Nice having a non weird pen I can just leave at work. The refills are awesome. And it is too much fun switching between colors as I write to do lists.

Also useful to have a pen that has 4 “refills” in it.

In a recent episode of The Pen Addict Podcast they talked about some weird recycled washi paper notebook. And got to the subject of the price per page in notebooks and touched on price per ml for ink.

Both topics are interesting, but it got me thinking.

I don’t care that much about the price per ml of ink. What would make things interesting is to have a number of how much ink an average person would have used to fill a A5 page with long form writing with some mainstream pen.

Let’s say a Lamy Safari with a Fine nib in a Leuchtturm1917 A5 lined notebook.

I it would vary a lot from person to person on so many different levels. But probably similar levels of being off from person to person.

If we could say that the ink price per page is 0.X cents or you can fill X pages per dollar and compare that would be a lot less abstract and “okay whatever” than the “it costs 40 cents per ml” thing we often do.

The main reason I’m currently looking at going smaller than A5 for my main notebooks are simple. Most of the time I don’t use a page of A5 as one page. Or not all of it.

One option would be to do to A5 slim. Another is something like A6. Or anything close to them.

For all of my writing, lists etc an A6, Travelers Passport, pocket size etc (just talking about all of the almost the same sizes as one here) either a single or a double size of them would work fine. Most of them are written either my dividing an A5 in a 2x2 grid or in 2-3 lanes anyways. Or for writing I just waste a lot of room.

My planners are a bit more complex to get that to work with something that small to get the layout I want: weekly, horizontal, same size all days on one line. For this I think it would have to be a double spread layout if I wanted something small.

Part of my motivation for this on the short term is to reduce the size and weight of the notebooks I carry. Plus that if I get a bit smaller than A5 it is so much easier to fit notebooks in packing cubes, slings etc. The options are so much larger even if I just scale it down to an A5 slim.

The solution in a notebook world would be to use a Hobonichi Weeks or full size Travelers Notebook refill. When I get a binder it leads it me to consider how I want to do things. Multiple binders is one option, another is to not have everything in the binder, or to go for the option that is the best for all my constraints.

But smaller notebooks going forward will be what I’m going to play with next year or as I use up what I have.

The reason I’m so terribly slow with pulling the trigger on buying a binder is as always with me 2-5 reasons:

• I don’t have the money for it right now anyways
• There are a lot of other tasks getting one would put on me, knowing myself
• Plus that recently I started to reconsider sizes etc

The middle one is the main reason I haven’t done it yet.

If I get a binder I’d also had to get at least a printer, hole punch and maybe one of those cutting board thingies if I get one in a format that isn’t compatible with paper that is easy to get and print on.

All of that adds to the expense, but isn’t that big of a deal.

However, when I get a printer and start doing my own layouts there is only a question of time before I start to design my own page layouts in Affinity Publisher or something.

Like how I split my pages into three sections for my hit lists would be something I print, or the various layouts for my bullet journal. Or planner pages.

Not a huge deal, but still something I need to keep in the back of my mind as I move forward.

It would also enable me to do things in a way that I can’t now, including do a lot of things I don’t do because of how much work it would be to do it manually.