» Numbered Pages?
If you’ve ever visited my other blog, you’ll know that I’ve reviewed a lot of different brands and styles of journals.
While the Webbie meets about 95% of my preferred features, to make it 100% perfect I’d love to see numbered pages. (What??? Numbered pages? Seriously? Yes… ) I just reviewed a competitor’s product and the one thing I liked about it was their combination feature of numbered pages with a blank index at the front of the book. As I tend to do a great deal of stream of consciousness writing, I loved the fact that I could simply note the page numbers at the front of the book should there be a particular section I’d want to refer back to. It sure beats all those little sticky page flags whose purpose I always end up forgetting- much like a string tied around a finger… I liked this feature so much, I recently hand numbered all of the pages in my new (3.0) blank Webbie.
Have you ever used a journal with numbered pages, or numbered your own? Of all of the journals I’ve ever tested, the one mentioned above was only brand I’ve ever seen with them. I’m wondering if it just isn’t a feature that people are interested in, that it is too costly to produce, or if it’s one that other companies are simply missing out on.
(PS – my full list of preferred journal features include: roughly 6×8 in size, hardbound, rounded corners on both paper & cover, blank off-white fountain pen friendly paper, 70g-ish paper weight, numbered pages, and a cover in black, red, or purple.)
Comments
This is an interesting topic.
I never bothered much with ToC or Index in my notebooks. But at 40 my memory is failing a bit and I’ve realized I need both.
I don’t number pages, but sheets. Only those that fall to my right, on the lower right corner, so it is easy to flip through the sheets and see the sheet number. I leave 2 sheets blank right after my cover page, where I put a ToC and if I have space an index. I assign tags, much like blog pages do, and those are the ones I index. This is especially useful when using ePure books, which are 100 sheets long!
I try to keep my tags broad enough so that each entry might only get two or three at most.
My system is still evolving. I am curious about other organizational systems that used to be taught in the 19thC, such as those for indexing and organizing Commonplace Books. But I haven’t yet made the time to research this. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears!
Regards,
Isabel
I have hand numbered pages in the past…largely just for me to keep track of where I was relative to the whole of the journal. It interests me to compare over time how many pages I write in a given period. Speaks to what is going on in life, where I am, etc.
That said, having hand numbered them and messed up on the numbering (!) I’d love it if the pages were subtly numbered already. My favorites don’t seem to offer that, though.
Oh, and another journal feature I look for is sewn signatures. It’s all about durability! I want to be able to throw it in the backpack, pull it out on a city bus and write an observation with it smooshed against me, lay it flat to transcribe later…
I prefer to number my own notebook pages, because you can keep a running page count across multiple notebooks and choose notebooks based on size, shape, and paper quality rather than on the presence of page numbers.
The easiest way to do it yourself is with a numbering stamp that advances each time you stamp it. You can find them new on eBay for less than 30 dollars (search numbering machine).
I really like the idea of numbered pages with room for a table of contents / index. I tend to spend a lot of time flipping through books to find that important business note or idea I thought about last week. In fact, I really should make an index of my notebooks…Yikes!
An advancing numbering stamp? I’m all over it! Thanks!
I use a system almost identical to RW above. I bought an advancing number stamp off ebay for $10 shipped, and I keep a running page count on my drafting and note taking notebooks. It works quite well.
Even though I liked that system I’ve recently switched over the the Levenger Circa system. I haven’t quite figured out how my number stamp will translate to the new system…
I’m indifferent. If the journal happens to have numbered pages, great. If not, well, I know how to make numbers with a pen. ^_^
Strangely, I am not numbering the pages in my current journal and I’m doing that on purpose. It’s a fairly large one (about 300 pages) but I don’t want to make it about “how many pages can I do?” I’m trying to keep it very organic and so I’m not counting pages.
I’ve been journaling in one form or another since childhood and have always numbered my pages. Since starting the Morning Pages routine about 15 years ago I have started numbering the journals also. I don’t do a ToC, but I have been known to reference a journal number and page number in preceding journals to highlight a point that may have been made at an earlier time. There is something about the continuity of the numbered pages. I have also taken to writing the date and day on every page of the journal.
Having read though old journals of my own and other peoples, I have found it rather irritating to have to wonder what day of the week the entry was written. Then there are those books that were so cheap they’ve started to fall apart. It’s a royal pain to try to figure out which page goes where in the overall scheme of the writing. It is also much simpler to know if a page has been removed, or lost over time.
Part of my reasoning on this came from a story about the race to the North Pole and questions about the journal that was kept my one of the first adventurers. (I think it was Byrd’s.) There are questions about his journal due to unnumbered and missing pages and there is theory that he did not attain his goal because of the incidence with the journal. History has a way of questioning the validity of a persons claim if there are any questions of imporpriety.
Right after I read the post above, I bought myself an advancing number stamp from eBay w/ ink etc., for $20 shipped.
I wish that all journals came with numbered pages. I frequently number the pages in my journals (which can really be a pain, especially with the thicker books) and create tables of contents for my journals. (I’m glad to have read about the numbering stamper in the comments here, as I could probably use it.) Many of my notebooks contain many different elements, perhaps some journal pages here, then some drafts of blog posts, then lists of books that I have read, and so on. Creating a table of contents (which therefore requires numbered pages) allows me to see at a glance what a given book contains.
Scientific lab notebooks almost always come with numbered pages. I used them doing field work in forestry (they were ordered through forestry suppliers) but a google search for scientific notebooks will turn up suppliers of a range of different types. However, the page layouts may not appeal other than the numbering, I can’t vouch for paper quality, and purple is unlikely!
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