I got myself a Stalogy notebook

I got myself a new to me notebook, called Stalogy!

Sometimes you just have to own a specific notebook that you’ve seen online and that “everyone” has and loves. This happened to me with “the Stalogy notebook”. I just could not live another day without it, so I ordered myself this specific notebook that I wanted, and actually, believe it or not: my life did feel better afterwards!

I’m in love with my new shiny Stalogy notebook!

Stalogy is a well established Japanese brand made byニトムズ(Nitoms), and it is much loved in the planner community. It’s perfect for bullet journaling, for example, or as a undated substitute for the Hobonichi notebook. The Stalogy is one of those notebook brands that has a really big fan following, kind of like Moleskine back in the day. You don’t have to say “my Moleskine notebook” when talking about it. It’s just “Moleskine”, that is enough. I think it’s the same with “the Stalogy”, at least to the people in the know-how. It’s probably not as well known as the Moleskine brand (yet, haha) but if you know you know. And now you’ll know too. If you haven’t heard about it yet, I’m glad you are here. Let’s take a closer look!

Why I wanted a Stalogy notebook

I wanted a Stalogy notebook because it had some features that I have been looking for in a notebook for quite some time. In short (I’ll talk more in depth about each of these points below):

• The Stalogy notebook has really thin paper – the pages in this notebook are 52 gsm, comparable to Tomoe River paper, durable and also great for fountain pen users (or so I’ve heard)
• Stalogy comes with graph paper – I absolutely love this fact, and finally,
• Stalogy is a thick notebook – the series I bought is called the Editor’s Series 365, which means the notebook has 365 pages! Amazing, right?

It’s both thick and thin at the same time, durable but lightweight and slim. Elegant as well, and I love it’s simplicity.

The Stalogy notebook series come with grid papers inside and all of them has a similar look, but you can find them in a couple of different colors (red, blue, yellow and black) and different sizes: A5, A6, B5 or B6!

Each one has +365 pages but there is also a half-year version available if you want an even thinner (and smaller) notebook to carry around. The binding looks really flat, like it is a glue binding, but the Stalogy is thread bound as well, which is a big plus to me. Glue bound notebooks tend to start tearing apart after a while of intense use.

A notebook with thin pages

Again, the paper in the Stalogy notebook series is really thin, 52 gsm (in comparison: a regular printer paper is about 80 gsm), and I already knew that’s what I wanted. I have experimented on that kind of paper before, but not written extensivly so I wanted it inside my next journal.

The biggest advantages of thin papers inside a notebook is that they can cram a lot of pages into one notebook that way (I loved the Nanami Cafe notebook for example). If that is an advantage is up to you to decide. If you are prolific in filling your notebooks this will help you from finishing your notebook too quickly. You can add in a lot more information, and just keep writing instead of having to set up an entirely new notebook every month or two (which is fun but can be a hassle if it happens too often). And then there’s the fact that once you get a taste for this kind of thin, durable paper you just want to write on it. Personally, I can’t resist it.

It has a lovely rustling sound when you flip through your notebook as well, and I enjoy that. With the right pen it does not bleed through at all, and the faint ghosting I get with the black ink pen I’m using is about the same as a notebook with a lot thicker pages. It is kind of magic, really.

And I love the faint gray grid lines of each page in the Stalogy notebook as well. The grid is small at 5×5 mm, but that is the perfect size for my handwriting right now. I thought it would be a bit too small, and some days it is, but most of the time it just works great and the lines helps keep my handwriting neat and tidy.

Printed on the grid

I started using grid notebooks when I got into GDT many years ago, and wanted to keep a grid notebook when I started Bullet Journaling as well (even though the dot grid notebooks were everywhere at the time and it was hard to find a normal graph grid notebook around here). And now I just think grids go great with the whole organizing your life idea, and even with diary writing. My favorite notebook papers otherwise always has blank papers. With lines I always feel a bit restricted, and the lines are never as tightly together as I’d like them to be. Grids are smaller and they give me more opportunities, and with the Stalogy grid being so faint, it is in no way obtrusive or disturbing to the eye I think.

The Stalogy notebook also has some printed calendar guides, as another feature that could aid you using it as a daily planner, but to me that text is so small it is negligible. At the top of each page there are three tiny lines of text where you can, if you have good eye-sight, circle month, week day and date – but I usually add a bit of decoration (tape or a doodle) or simply write over this with my black pen. And then to the left of where the grid starts on each page there is a vertical line of numbers that represent the time. It goes from 07 to 23.00 (11.00 o’clock PM), but again, it’s so faint you can just ignore it and to me it’s not visible at all after using the notebook for a while.

I wish the notebook came with page numbers, but other than that I do not miss anything. Not the hard cover, not the usual back-pocket, not an index (because I set up my own anyway in any notebook I use these days) or even a pen loop. Non of that are essential to me. Oh maybe the cover…

Stalogy has a soft cover

What about the cover? The Stalogy comes with a soft cover, surprise surprise. It is a black plasticky material, easy to bend and decorated with just a few gilded tiny words along the front spine announcing its name and the company’s tag line “What should have been, is“. That it’s a softcover of course contributes to the thin nature of the entire notebook, how light it is and how it feels like it was made to be “on the move” in a pocket, your handbag or out hiking with you on your next camping trip perhaps.
For me, this is strange new territory… I can’t even remember when I chose a notebook with a soft cover as my diary last. Probably back in school when gifted a notebook by someone. I like having whatever I write or add into my diary protected for prosperity, but as I write that, I am not sure why.
In any case, the Stalogy had a soft cover and I decided it would have to work for me this time. The other things, listed above, outweighed that small con.

There is also a plethora of add on covers that you can buy of course, but since I wasn’t sure I’d be keeping a Stalogy long-term (they are not cheap and adding on a cover plus international shipping for all of it made this an investment to try out first). But covers are a good idea for your notebook if you’re worried about it longevity. If I was traveling (or doing that hike), for example, I’d choose to get a sturdy leather cover for my notebook for sure. There’s also transparent plastic covers you can compliment your Stalogy with, and I love how those look but I haven’t been able to order one just yet.

But I want to get myself a cover later on I think. Maybe these two together:

Stalogy jelly cover in B6 – with stars. So pretty!

The leather cover is available in many pretty colors like the cute pea green above, as well as bright yellow and baby pink (among many others) but I haven’t found a hot pink that I love just yet… The Moterm (below) seams to be the most popular one to get for your Stalogy planner / notebook any size, but I think I’d prefer a smooth leather rather than this pebbled one that so many others seam to love. And talking about sizes…

Deciding on a notebook size is very personal and something each and everyone of us must have an internal debate about before committing. This is my thought process for deciding (this time) on the B6 size!

Deciding on a Stalogy Notebook size

YouTube binge watching has been my kind of comfort food for a while now, the thing I consume when I can’t deal with the world (at all). I find a new favorite YouTuber or series of videos, and watch all of that content (going to the first video in a series or watching back-log material if it revolves around the subject matter that I am into at the moment). It’s the never-ending comfort food for me.
With watching Stalogy content, I started back in April I think. I was watching loads of Stalogy notebook review videos and women “setting up” their different sized Stalogy notebooks. I decided on the A5, then the A6 and then the B6, changing my mind several times. Sizes are so hard to grasp when you can’t hold the item in your hand. I took this photo to clarify the difference if you’re anything like me with measurements:

The A5 would’ve been the most obvious choice for me, since most of my previous diaries have been that size. It is standard here in Sweden, and it’s easy to find that kind of notebook here. But… what about newness and changing things up a bit? Not too much, nothing crazy, but a slightly different notebook than I’d had before perhaps? Hmm…

I love A6 notebooks as well, because they’re kind of pocket sized and fun to fill quickly. But when it comes to journaling I write a lot. I like to write maybe three A5 pages on a regular day, and that would be 6-7 pages in a A6 notebook. I think the result would be a lot of flipping to write in it and then to read through just one diary entry. In between A5 and A6 you will find the B6, so I guess that is why I settled on that size finally. And I am happy about that decision.

B6 is the happy in-between, I guess. And in case you really wanted the numbers that means my new notebook is 7.2 inches (182 mm) long and 5.0 inches (128 mm) wide.

Have you ever felt this kind of longing for a specific notebook? To me this was the same kind of longing that I felt when i discovered the concept of traveler’s notebooks and fell in love with the system. And I felt the same obsessive urge when I got into journaling in a Fauxbonichi. I still love regular size TN:s and use quite a few, but currently I don’t have a system set up, and with this Stalogy B6 notebook, that is what I want to achieve. A new system to play with.

I hope you enjoyed this look at the Stalogy Editor Series 365 Days Notebook in B6. I will continue tomorrow with setting this notebook up for myself, and I can’t wait to show you!

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