Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter A5

I mentioned in my first post that I switched to Roterfaden after first getting acquainted with the traveler’s notebook. Both share the advantage of carrying multiple inserts/notebooks. While I love both systems, the Roterfaden is the one that would be found in my bag everywhere I go. Not only does it contain Midori weekly insert I used to have on my traveler’s notebook to keep me organized, it also carries my notebooks, allowing me to just grab this one thing and I have everything I need whether I am going to a meeting or to classes.

I purchased this beauty from Baum-kuchen, a beautiful online store that sells cute stationeries, personally-curated leather goods, and miscellaneous decorative items. It seems that Baum kuchen is one of the few US sellers that carry Roterfaden products at this point. The original Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter store in Germany offers a wide variety of personalization options and color/design combinations but production and shipping take a few weeks. I am not very patient in general, and the pre-made designs found in Baum-kuchen suit my needs just fine. I’ve purchased two Roterfaden covers — one regular, and the thinner Wk-12 model (the bottom one in the first picture), which I will post in more detail in the future. I will be discussing the regular, light brown A5 cover in this post:

The outside cover is made of suede leather and a tough, slightly-elastic fabric for the spine. Inside, there are pockets of varying sizes made of gray wool felt. It adds considerable thickness to the whole cover, but I came to like the stability it provides while still retaining some flexibility to mold its shape as needed.

I have a total of four notebooks inside — a weekly insert, two thin A5 notebooks, and one thicker A5 notebook. I played around with a few different set-ups and I believe I now have what works best:

#1: Midori Weekly insert

I simply removed this insert from the traveler’s notebook that I was using before and stuck it in here. As a planner, I prefer a horizontal weekly layout rather than vertical (Outlook calendar shows my exact hourly schedule vertically each day. My analog planner needs are slightly different…) I also love having the right side page blank so that I can jot down any notes during that week.

On the left side which is divided into seven days (Saturdays and Sundays get equal amount of space as any other day, yay!), I write important tasks and reminders for each day.

I’ve asked myself at some point, do I really need a paper planner when I have the Outlook to keep track of every hour of my day? Not that I am particularly a fan of Microsoft Outlook but it comes with the job. I tried using the task list functionality but just couldn’t stand it. Therefore, I need a paper planner and love it!

I am also re-using the Midori traveler’s notebook zipper pouch where I keep a few sticky notepads:

#2: Roterfaden dot-grid booklet

After the weekly insert and zipper pouch is a Roterfaden’s own insert — I chose dot-grid but they make variety of notebooks including ruled, grid, blank, sketchbook, etc. I like the design and the feel of the paper (fountain pen-friendly if you’re wondering). I don’t think I’ll be purchasing it again though. I have other favorites that are cheaper.

I use this little booklet for just jotting down random notes. I find it too small in capacity (20 sheets) to keep any long-term notes and so, prefer to use it for temporary purposes. The picture below shows Roterfaden insert on top of Muji notebooks. Both are advertised as A5 size but Roterfaden is a few milimeters smaller in dimension as you can see below:

#3: Muji grid notebook

My third item inside my Roterfaden cover is a Muji grid notebook which I got from Amazon — 5-pack 30-sheet notebooks. Very economical and paper quality is as good as Roterfaden and Leuchtturm in my novice opinion. For my note-taking habits, I find the size and the number of sheets just fine for a single class. My plan is to switch this out each semester. I can always add more if I need to keep notebooks for more than one class at a time.

A minor complaint I have for this notebook is that its cover is made of a very stiff paper. I like my notebook covers soft and pliable — I like the Roterfaden inserts in this regard. The stiff Muji cover means that I have to keep my left hand to press it down while I write on it. But again, it’s a very minor complaint and it’s so much more economical. I forget the exact price but the 5-pack Muji notebook (30-sheet) was still cheaper than the 3-pack Roterfaden notebooks (20-sheet).

As a side note, I used to carry manila folders to classes for printed reading materials and loose papers. No longer! The metal clips of the Roterfaden system let me to just stick them between my notebooks as you can see below, and they won’t fall out:

#4: Leuchtturm1917 grid notebook (soft cover)

I have a Moleskine soft cover notebook that I have been carrying around for several years where I kept all my notes relevant to my job as an oncology nurse. Whether I was reading up on something in our medical library or attend a conference or studying for my certification exam, it was all in a single notebook. I was very impressed how sturdy the “soft cover” turned out to be.

After I decided I like A5 size much better, I replaced Moleskine with Leuchtturm1917 out of curiosity. I’ve read that Moleskine papers are terrible for fountain pens but I wouldn’t know — I was not using fountain pens back then.

Anyways, now I have this A5 Leuchtturm1917 grid notebook as the fourth insert in my Roterfaden to serve the same function as the large Moleskine in the past. Unlike the other thin inserts, this is much thicker (>120 pages) and I mean to keep this same notebook for a long time. Therefore, the notes that go in here will be stuff that I’ll be referring to over and over again.

I am really loving this notebook for two reasons: page numbers and the content page in the beginning:

So far, I have written things like chemotherapy drugs, bone remodeling process, coagulation pathways… I find myself having to look these up more than once or twice, and keeping a semi-permanent notebook with an organized content list will be very useful.

 

Finally, the picture below shows you the back pocket with iPad mini:

It gets pretty heavy and thick with the tablet inside but I don’t carry the iPad all the time. When I do, however, the convenience of having everything I need at once is a huge advantage in my opinion.

So, this is how I use this Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter! (A great companion indeed!)

Feel free to ask me any questions regarding this product since I am sure there are things I’ve overlooked, and thank you for visiting!

~meow~

 

 

 

Traveler’s Notebook

I stepped into the world of the Traveler’s Notebooks only a few months ago and have since felt amazed by the loyal following and all the creative ways of using the medium. My introduction to this arena was a much cheaper ZLYC brand rather than the ever-popular Midori brand of the traveler’s notebooks but they’re very similar, as far as I can tell based on the numerous posts I’ve read online.

I am now relying more on my trusty Roterfaden for the organization purposes and note-taking, but I still use the regular size traveler’s notebook for my personal journal and record-keeping. It just stays home instead of following me to work and school. What does follow me everywhere, however, is the passport-size traveler’s notebook which functions as my wallet:

ZLYC sells a package of traveler’s notebook set which includes the regular size, a passport size, and a leather pen  case for around $40 on Amazon. I hear the leather quality is much better with Midori brand, but this suits my purpose just fine.

As you can see in the picture, I’ve made some modifications to the elastics. The original ZLYC notebooks’ elastics are very tight, and tend to squish the inserts inside. I’ve changed the elastics of the regular size notebook with a Midori brand elastic, which is thinner and more pliable. For the passport size, what you see in the picture is just one of my hair bands… just because it was right there and softer.

To re-purpose it as a wallet, I purchased a zipper case refill so that I can carry cash and credit cards:

 

And in the middle, I have a blank insert that came with the ZLYC package:

It’s pretty handy to have a notebook in your wallet, as I’ve come to find out. I jot down miscellaneous notes here — mostly definitions and tidbits from here and there. Whenever I am waiting in a line (like the Starbucks store in our hospital that always has a long line), I open this up and start reading. Of course we have our smartphones these days to ensure entertainment wherever we are, but this little notebook actually keeps me productive.

So, hooray for the multi-functionality of the traveler’s notebook!

I know my posts have been rather practical than artsy. If you’d like to see all the wonderful creative ways of using these little notebooks, just google traveler’s notebook and there are tons of blogs and Instagrams with beautiful pictures. I won’t link any since there are so many!

Wow, I’ve been very productive with this blog in the last couple of days. Since this is the end of my weekend, I probably won’t get much chance to write anything else in the next few weeks. My goal is to keep writing regularly though, hopefully at least twice a month. This has been a lot of fun and hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you!

~meow~