I see all your oddly specific 2024 recaps and I raise you with this one about notebooks.

I am the first to admit I have a bit of a stationary obsession. When I feel stressed, I love to go to P.W. Akkerman on the Langebrugsteeg in Amsterdam, just to look at the various notebooks and index cards they have for sale. I always have to restrain myself for not buying one when I visit, and sometimes I succeed at that. There is just something so promising about getting a new notebook, and thinking of all the ways you could make notes in it to declutter your mind.

Here are, in rough chronological order, some notebooks I bought or used in 2024. And yes, they are mostly dotted Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, and no, they are not all from P.W. Akkerman. (But never ordered online!)

Leuchtturm Classic Medium (A5) "Rising Sun"

Dotted, 251 pages, hardcover, 80g/m²
Technically I bought this orange/yellow one in 2023. It was in cellophane in my bag when some person broke the passenger window of my car, trying to get my laptop out of it, on the last day of the year. The thief must have touched it, for it was in the laptop compartment, but they threw the bag – notebook included – back into my car when they noticed there was no laptop.

On 1 January, I opened the cellophane and started writing a long form diary in it. There was a lot on my mind at that time, and I had a lot of free time (the company I worked for just went bankrupt), so I wrote down my thoughts in tiny handwriting. I used the first 61 pages in January, up to page 130 in february and stopped on page 161 at the end of March. Then a few pages with entries of September, October, November. In December I really picked it up again and I am now at page 210.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Stone Blue"

Dotted, 123 pages, soft cover, 80g/m²
I honestly don't remember if I bought this one this year, but I think so. Either way, I did not write a single thing it in, even though it is out of the cellophane.

Bloc Rhodia Nº 16 (dotpad, A5, ringed)

Dotted, 80g/m²
This is technically not a notebook, but more a notepad. It's by my knowledge the only dotted notepad on the market, and the paper is nice. I already had the same sized dotpad Nº 16 without rings, but I wanted a new one because I wanted to take notes and work, and the lined notepads they provided were just not up to my taste.

I never really pulled out any paper of it, so I know the first sheet is dated 4 March 2024, as that was my first day at work. Sometimes I did write down a date. The last written pages contain notes from my first D&D sessions as a DM, in May 2024.

Leuchtturm Classic Pocket (A6) "Fox Red"

Dotted, 123 pages, soft cover, 80g/m²
Again one of those I don't know for sure I bought in 2024, but at least I started using it last year. The first page has notes about a D&D session in which I played the character Voks, on 11 May. This was a session with a Eurovision theme, and I'm glad I have some paper notes of it. That was also the purpose of this book for me: notes about RPGs, so that I can avoid using the Rhodia dotpad for it.

The book also contains notes about sessions of Pirate Borg, Mausritter, Delta Green and goes as recently as 6 November for a session of Cloud Empress. There is a folded sheet of Rhodia dotpad paper in it with a rudimentary character sheet for my Cloud Empress character "Bloody". I will try to continue using this book for specifically this purpose of RPG notes in 2025.

Moleskine Cahier Pocket Black

Ruled, three cahiers, 70g/m²
This is the beginning of a little graveyard. Between May and August, I was compiling a portable DM-kit: a set of tokens and cards I can use as a Dungeon Master / story teller during RPG sessions. For this, I bought a small case that's originally intended to house a portable hard drive, and I stuffed it to the brim with pencils, wooden game components and index cards. (I will not include all the index cards I bought in this post.)

For this purpose, I also got a new set of these Moleskine cahiers. I have a lot of them, in various states of being written in, so I just wanted some more. My perfectionism decided at the time that there was a better option out there, so I did not end up using them.

Leuchtturm Jottbook Double (A6) "Light Grey / Black"

Dotted, two cahiers of 59 pages, flex cover, 80g/m²
These two nice dotted cahiers did fit perfectly in the aforementioned hard drive case. But what is more: they have more pages (I think, the Moleskine is unnumbered) and they have dots! As you might have noticed, I love dotted notebooks.

I just looked at the two now: the Light Grey one is unwritten, the Black one has a few unclear notes, written in one session I DM'ed. But hey, they are more perfect!

Bloc Rhodia Nº 18 (dotpad, A4)

Dotted, 80g/m²
I know, I keep going back and forth. This is again more a notepad, but somewhere in the same timeframe I bought it because as a DM, I wanted to write my notes on big dotted paper that would lay flat behind my DM-screen. Hence the A4 dotpad, no rings this time.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Black"

Dotted, 219 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
This one I bought because I wanted a notebook to write in at work again. Previously I had been using the Rhodia dotpad for that purpose, but I disliked the fact that I was using a notepad as a notebook. If you never pull out the pages, why not have it bound? Also: I wasn't really taking notes at all anymore at that point, and I wanted to change that.

I started at the end of July and used a whopping 6 pages of the notebook, as I broke my foot in the beginning of August, which in turn changed a lot of habits around work, most notably the fact that I had to work from home for a while.

At the end of November, I bought the book The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Caroll, which made me want to start one. Since I only used the first six pages of this notebook (making it therefore already imperfect), it became the perfect starting point for me. It has been my Bullet Journal all throughout December and I just started January 2025 on page 48.

Leuchtturm × Bullet Journal: Pocket (A5) Black

Custom dotted, three cahiers of 46 pages, flex cover, 80g/m²
I just had to instantly buy this the moment I saw it lying down at P.W. Akkerman. It's a set of three small booklets with dotted pages, but with the special extra dots at the middle of the page, so you can easily divide the page in two by drawing a line through those. And maybe their most distinct feature: they are designed to use sideways, in landscape orientation.

I haven't used a single one of these... they just look too pretty. But I am sure that this partly influenced me to (again) look at the Bullet Journal method, even though it was months after the purchase.

Leuchtturm Classic Pocket (A6) "Stone Blue"

Ruled, 187 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
Yes, you read it correct: ruled. I bought this small book for a specific purpose: I wanted to work out a bit more and wanted to log exactly what exercises I did during that. Some Youtuber recommended using "an ugly cheap notebook" for this, so I went with the ruled version.

I instantly hated it. I don't really comprehend how the same company that makes the best dotted notebooks of all time, can also make a ruled notebook with the annoying text 'DATUM/DATE' on top of every page. As if every day takes up exactly one page? Sometimes I have more to write, sometimes I can fit three days on one page. Leave me alone!

I have here workouts from 23 September to 16 December. It even went to Gran Canaria with me. 16 December does mean that I fell off the wagon a bit, and to that I will admit. I have been doing undocumented workouts, but writing this bit makes me realize I should return to this humble booklet.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Port Red"

Dotted, 219 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
I distinctly remember buying this one after I broke my foot, at the local Athenaeum Boekhandel here in Bijlmer, because I believe I bought it while in the wheelchair. There was also a bundle of stories by queer people that I bought with it. I recently rediscovered the unopened paper bag with the two inside in a pile in my living room.

The notebook is still in cellophane and I think I will use it as a future Bullet Journal once my current one fills up. (I only rediscovered this one when I already started using the black one, but I think picking the black one was the right choice anyway.)

Leuchtturm × Bullet Journal: 2nd Edition (A5)

Custom dotted, 206+ pages, hard cover, 120g/m²
No. I did not in fact buy this one, nor will I in the near future. In the past, I might have done it, but my current Bullet Journal includes a list of "to impulse buy" at a later date in the month, which successfully kept me off on this one. I love the custom dots, I love to support the original creator of the method, but no, I think 120g/m² is just way too heavy paper for my needs. The page count is quite a bit lower than the classic Leuchtturm, and I still find the book just too bulky.