How to Start a New Notebook? A Few Good Ideas

Are you one of those people intimidated by a new notebook? Check out our favorite and creative ways to break the ice.

Do you have a few notebooks at home, but you still can’t bring yourself to start writing in a them? Below you will find a few tricks that will help you write the first sentence in your new notebook.

1. Start with a calendar

Yes, an excuse to buy another “notebook”. Choose something from a similar to the notebooks you already have lying around the house. Maybe even a product from the same brand? If it’s the middle of the year (like now), you’ll pay half the price for it, if not less, and you can start your adventure now.

Why a calendar? Because if you won’t start using it now, it’ll go to waste anyway! It’s a good way to get used to the new paper and writing by hand, especially after a long break. Just being in touch with a notebook can also inspire you to write down other things. (And use more notebooks, see?!)

2. Plan its contents

When you are buying a notebook, or just looking through what you already have, think about what could be inside. The dotted ones are associated with Bullet Journal, but they are good for anything. From drawing to writing, and a million other things in between. Your diary or short stories would look good in lines, but what about grid? I make recipe books out of those.

Giving the notebook a purpose will definitely help a little! And if you’re wondering what might be in such a notebook, Magda has prepared a nice list.

3. Copy your favorite quote, song lyrics, or a poem

If you plan to have something more private in your notebook, you can write something “simple” on the first page (or somewhere in the middle!). Something that won’t require creative thinking but is important enough. The lyrics of your favorite song or an important quote are one of the best excuses to start writing in your new notebook.

4. Take a step back (or forward!)

Think about how time flies, that in a few years from now you might still have a pile of notebooks next to you, always empty, because you feared ruining them. Wouldn’t it be better to have something to read or remember?

It’s a bit existentialist, but whatever! Plus, if something’s been sitting on your shelf for a few years, waiting for the day you start, you really should do something about it. We don’t buy notebooks just to have them, right?

5. Think about your next new notebook!

In case you know what you want to put in your new notebook, but you’re just afraid because “it’s so beautiful”, think that when you fill it halfway, maybe a little further, it will be time to look for a new one. And you’ll easily find an even more beautiful one! Kind of like digging through your home library, only more time-consuming, but also probably more satisfying?

6. Ruin the front page!

This is an extreme solution!

When you have no idea how to start a notebook, start scribbling on the first page. Make it ugly. Ruin it! Make random lines, play with markers, pens and whatever else you have at hand. Once you “destroy” the notebook, you might as well write in it, right? It’s ugly enough as it is now and it won’t get any worse.

Of course, there are as many ideas as there are people who have started a new notebook after a long battle with themselves, so feel free to share your “trick”! And also, please keep in mind, that these ideas does not guarantee that you will not abandon the new notebook after a few pages, but it is something! A start! And a push.

Don’t expect too much from yourself at the very beginning. The first steps in a new notebook should be about exploring the accessories that will work with it, testing the colors that will look good together and how big letters should you write depending on the spacing of the lines on the pages. After so many years with notebooks, I still have moments when I choose the wrong pen at first – but that’s okay, it will be better on the next page.