My Traveler's Notebook

It had been over a year since I had first read or seen some video about a traveler's notebook. The idea is that since no one notebook can be everything for everybody, there are modular notebook inserts that you can stack and organize, limited only by the number of rubber bands you want to strap around them. In late August of '25, I was taking Norrin around town to get ready for school. New gym/street shoes, supplies, new fits... and we're in Andersonville with time left on the parking meter, so we walk down to a very crowded Paper & Pencil, and by the time I could make my way to that part of the store, everything was laid before me to assemble it.

I remember as I was putting it together at my home office/studio that I really wanted to be purposeful about using it, but not treat it sacred, because it is meant to be a living, useful part of how I do things.

It has taken me about three months to get into a swing of things but with two weeks off of school, I took advantage of every opportunity to rest, reflect, celebrate and prepare. And at least this first week in, I now feel ready to share what and how I do what all I'm starting to do.

Folder

Unlike the corporate and government world, much of the rest of the world is still doing a LOT on paper that is to be kept and maintained before you hand it off at the end of the month. I get signed off on every skill I'm practicing on a literal Activity Sheet, and if I lose my sheet with all the signatures on it... that's the only legit record that's recognized.

A tiny folder for important documents (and a place to hold spare pencil graphite and erasers) helps.

Weekly Planner

Sunday mornings are usually my time for weekly retrospection and commitment session (see My Process below), but when I'm making the plan and what I'm checking against daily, during the week, is in this planner.

I'll explain what I'm doing in terms of reminders/notes/etc also below. For now, just focus on what it looks like.

Daily Journal

Up until this week, this insert came with the initial notebook kit and I hardly ever used it. I had no plan for it, but acknowledged the potential and I'm glad I kept it.

This first week was very busy, and I had to keep my own records until our activity sheets for January were available, and now I can tell you who was in my chair, what was special or unique to remember for next time, and also how much they tipped. I will likely do this forever.

Dot Grid

My favorite type of notebook. ... I intended that this would be more of a freeform creative journal.

This is actually the least used part of my whole set-up, but it may also be just a matter of the need for it not emerging yet.

Plain

Another included insert I had no plan for, other than to have a spot to draft things or ideas in conversation that didn't need to be saved/filed/organized in some other way (at least not in this notebook)

This has become a fertile playground for things I draw out while talking with people.

Having spent a few years really learning the hell out of software development practices, I've come to find a great deal of personal satisfaction from being able to keep track of my whole bag of chaos, and lowering my anxiety about taking care of shit that piles up... by coming up with a set of practices for myself that look a lot like Agile, but are really more about establishing a solid personal, analog and portable Kanban practice.

If that was gobbledygook to you, what I mean to say is this: I'm trying to be mindful while I'm in a safe learning environment to build new career skills and habits. I'm trying not to let my tendency to avoid things I don't like ruin the good stuff I got going on.

The following are some of the practices I've been doing (and getting better at doing).

Sprints

A sprint is just the term that's used to describe a span of time that I want to plan for. Most software teams I've worked on used/use two-week sprints as cycles for wrapping their collective heads around the work that needs to be done, all the ways things can get in the way of that, and then plan for that given sprint.

For me? Every week is kinda a sprint for me, learning wise. Especially as an adult learner going from working in my head most of the time to now fully having to get out of my head and trust in these hands?

For now, I'm doing one-week sprints, and any activity or to-do that goes beyond one-week has to really be broken down... but there aren't many of those in barber school that I've encountered yet.

Refining

Refining my to-do list is something I do multiple times a week, usually in the afternoons, when the shop is slow. I open my notebook at my station and just start looking at what's been done, what's to-do that's on the paper... and the questions come to my head "is there anything you forgot to write down?"

Actually the answer is no, because this now a multiple times a week habit and when there is something new to do (at least, barber-school wise), this notebook captures it. My life, albeit active and healthy now (for maybe the first time ever) is also at some kinda balance. I trust using the book and I have it with me almost always. And when I don't, I set a reminder on my phone to put this in the notebook when I get home.

The thing is when I'm writing down a reminder or telling Siri to set a reminder... whatever "the thing" is, at this point it's not really actionable for me. If something is worth me writing down, I should know more about it first, like how much effort I need to prepare myself to be present to "do the thing"

Estimating

A to-do list that doesn't account for at least the amount of time it's gonna take to "do the thing" isn't useful and I ignore those. So like a nerd who's both won and lost too many sprint-naming votes, I use Fibonacci numbers to estimate how much effort it's going to take me to do a thing.

Effort, for me, is not really about time, but for most people, time is the only part they can relate to when I talk about how I do things, so let's just make it easy to start and think about my time slices...

0 - will take minutes
1 - will take an hour
2 - will take two hours
3 - will take a half-day
5 - will take the rest of my time for a given school-day
8 - will take multiple days to commit to

In a given sprint I will only commit myself to 13 points.

That doesn't mean I only do 13 things. Most of the time my collective commitments barely hit 13 points... but everything else can be so random, and Chicago is so spreadout that with driving and traffic and time of day all being factors that I have to consider... this is how I estimate my life stuff.

Anything that's (0) I do asap bc it will be so quick and I can sometimes use that little endorphin boost of "hey, I did the thing!"

Ok.. now a little more about effort. Not all tasks are equal. Not all clients are the same. Not all the things you want to commit to are equally fun or equally miserable. Some things you commit to are going to require more energy, and that is a factor in how I estimate things I'm going to commit to doing.

Planning

Among the things I've learned from having to redo things over and over because management lacked the words to clearly and properly convey their priorities... is that getting priorities right matters, and that it is an entirely separate discussion from the discussion of what work needs to be done, and how hard it's going to be to do it.

It's another slice of looking at how to go about doing the things. So, when I make a plan for this next week, I'll look at any remaining to-do's from this current week and pull them into this next week. Now I'm gonna prioritize them because I don't want to carry things week to week if I can help it.

For a given week, I may have other commitments, not just projects or activities, that I need to do. For example, I have a week coming up with both a yearly physical, a check-in with my coach. Those are unmovable and time bound so those, too, are priorities.

I'm going to see Nine Inch Nails in Milwaukee in February – that's at least an 8 because I'll stay overnight.

I plan my sprints in advance when I know something's coming, and write them down, again, in the notebook. Though I have another capture device for this I'll talk about in another write-up ;)

Daily Check-In

Each morning around 10am, when instructional time is over and barbering students going for their hours on the floor arrive, people are knuckling me up as they walk in while I got a pen or pencil in my hand checking things out, writing down quick notes that came up during instruction, checking things off, figuring out what's next?

When a client arrives, that takes all priority, until then I have all the time I need to write things down and get stuff out of my head so I can be more present for what's going on right in front of me.

Retrospection + Commitment

I am working on getting more consistent with these practices, and honestly even writing this out helps me cement a few things for this week that I'm just more conscious about rather than letting it just happen every week ;)

I do a weekly retrospection on Sundays. I take my notebook up to my studio with my coffee and think about the following (liberally taken from GitHub)

• Keep doing: what is working and should I continue at current speed?
• Less of: what do I want less of in my next week?
• More of: Can I get more and what of?
• Stop doing: what’s not working and needs to be dropped?
• Start doing: what new things should I take on?

And my goal is to close out the retrospection with a weekly post that's ready to then roll out Monday mornings.

And when that post is scheduled to push live, then I know I'm ready to commit to the next sprint, turn the page in the travelers notebook, lay the string down on a new week and with the new sprint, a full set of things already captured that need to be done, I'm feeling pretty confident about the week ahead because....

it's all in the notebook.