[1] nic lake(me) • [3] Blog • [4] About • [5] Hello • [6] Now • [7] Projects • [8] Explore • [9] • [10] • [11] • Toggle theme □ Dark □ Light □ Auto Going Analog 1 October 2025 • [16]#Personal [17]#Analog I can still remember practically every computer/device setup I've ever had: • Family computers, starting in the mid 90s (a PowerMac G4 and an iMac DV SE) • My first laptop in 2005 (a PowerBook G4 Titanium), as I went off to college • Running 3 laptops (Mac, Windows, and Linux) simultaneously while I did WoW raids • Getting pissed off that friends would shoot NERF guns in the direction of my iMac in college • Doing the iMac / MacBook Air / iPad / iPhone lifestyle and thinking it was somehow making me more productive • Running a Mac and a gaming PC, with all peripherals integrated between the two • Going from 1 monitor, to 2, to 3 (can't be a True Gamer without 3, right?) Over the years, I've attempted to find small ways to disconnect from my devices, especially now that I'm a parent. I've tried [18]using notebooks all the time, gotten frustrated, and [19]tried to figure out why it wasn't for me. I used a notepad on my desk as a general task list, got mad that I couldn't take it everywhere with me, and pivoted to using [20]OmniFocus to keep track of everything on my phone. I've tried oodles of Focus Modes, making sure only the important apps were in front of me. But the things that finally got me over the hump? • Switching from 3 monitors to 2 ([21]an ultra-wide + second monitor above), and • Switching to a Mac Mini / doing away with a laptop as my every day machine I still have my work laptop that I utilize when necessary, but 99% of the time it's parked underneath my desk in my office, and I just remote in to it for whatever I need. It's been great - at 4pm every day, I stand up from my desk, and often times I don't return until the following morning. I'll have my phone on me, but no computers make their way downstairs barring a work emergency.^[22][1] I've also been much better about not coming up to play many games on my PC at night; instead, I've been busting out the Steam Deck as my primary gaming device, or picking up my Kindle (or GASP a physical book) to read instead. It's been baseball season, so I've been glued to my TV most night... but hey, if it helps me break away from my desk a bit more, so be it.^[23][2] I was in a good place. I thought I was done. And then... [24]Robb blogged about his journaling. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Look, I've said it before - I desperately want to be a notebook person. I don't know why, but the thought of having a nice notebook sitting in front of me that I can write down thoughts about my life, the things I need to do, make little doodles in... that appeals to me for some reason.^[25][3] I tried the school planners when I was a kid. I hated them, because it forced me to be responsible. I tried them again in college. I hated them too, because again, they forced me to be responsible. And now? I'm trying out using a pen & paper as my primary form of organization for a third time, using modified Bullet Journaling, because I have to be responsible, and now I feel obligated to force myself to embrace it. [26] A photo of my journals I totally swiped a lot of Robb's suggestions, mostly because if I didn't, I would've been paralyzed as far as where I should start. I picked up the [27] Scribbles That Matter Pro A5 dot grid journal (I got the Aqua color with 120gsm paper), along with a [28]LIHIT LAB Compact Pen Case. Pens, I'll leave for another time, but I wholly recommend the [29]Zebra Sarasa Clip gel pens. [30] A photo of my weekly task list setup I have a couple different sections set up currently: [31] A photo of day 1 of Inktober • A yearly calendar, with holidays, birthdays, and major events that I know are coming down the pipe • A section that has some of the top games, books, movies, and shows I want to consume • My weekly task lists, which is the primary purpose of this journal for me (I totally swiped the layout of this from Robb too, but to be fair, it's a really nice one) • Moments of Joy, which is what I was doing with my pocket journal when I first tried picking it up • An activity tracker, so I can see how I'm choosing to spend my free time • A book & game log (so long, spreadsheets) • Task list for some projects • Work meeting notes • Pages set aside for [32]Inktober I also picked up a [33]Lochby Pocket Journal, for carrying around and jotting things down on the fly. I've been telling my phone to remind me about things later, but writing it down and then triaging that list as I go has helped a bunch. I'll also put my shopping lists into that notebook, and let my daughter "help me" by crossing things off.^[34][4] We'll see how this goes. I feel better, and like I have a better understanding not only of my current day, but also what's coming up through the rest of the week. I've been doing this since late August, and it seems to have stuck over these 6ish weeks. I've also already gotten my 2026 journal (PURPLE!), and have planned out all the sections for it. [35] A photo of my journals (I fully admit, I used to think Notebook People™ were a little crazy and a lot extra... but I get it now.) I guess I'm a [36]Big BuJo Boy now. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. I did take my laptop down last week to do something while I watched a baseball game, and it felt VERY weird. So, I guess the conditioning has worked. [37]↩︎ 2. We'll see how that changes after the Red Sox season ends. [38]↩︎ 3. Just like commuting to work on a nice cafe-racer style motorcycle, with a nice backpack that holds the laptop, notebook(s), pens & pencils, water, and whatever amazing things I, a late-30s nerd, have been conditioned by Big EDC™ to Need In My Life. [39]↩︎ 4. My 3 year old has stolen a lot of my Field Notes journals to scribble in, which is great until we're out shopping and she wants to scribble in my pocket journal. I'm really trying to not be precious about this. [40]↩︎ © 2025 [41]Nic Lake • All rights reserved References: [1] https://niclake.me/ [3] https://niclake.me/blog/ [4] https://niclake.me/about/ [5] https://niclake.me/hello/ [6] https://niclake.me/now/ [7] https://niclake.me/projects/ [8] https://niclake.me/explore/ [9] https://bsky.app/profile/niclake.me [10] https://mastodon.social/@niclake [11] https://niclake.me/feed.xml [16] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#personal [17] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#analog [18] https://niclake.me/pocket-notebook/ [19] https://niclake.me/understanding-notebooks/ [20] https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/ [21] https://niclake.me/desk/ [22] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn1 [23] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn2 [24] https://rknight.me/blog/five-months-of-journalling/ [25] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn3 [26] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journals.jpeg [27] https://a.co/d/2Id5DxR [28] https://a.co/d/hN50xl7 [29] https://www.jetpens.com/Zebra-Sarasa-Clip-Gel-Pen-0.5-mm-10-Color-Set/pd/6384 [30] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journal.jpeg [31] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/inktober.jpeg [32] https://inktober.com/ [33] https://www.lochby.com/collections/journals/products/pocket-journal?variant=42350526365732 [34] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn4 [35] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/next-journal.jpeg [36] https://ruminatepodcast.com/201/ [37] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref1 [38] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref2 [39] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref3 [40] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref4 [41] https://niclake.me/going-analog/