How 5 of Noted's Readers Keep a Diary
Anniversary Post IV
With the New Year almost upon us, it is a perfect time to commit (or re-commit) to useful practices. To my mind, journaling is one of the best things you can do for yourself. As I’ve written before, “keeping a diary is a gift you give to your future self.” There are many ways to go about keeping a diary; at different times in my life I’ve gravitated towards different formats. Right now, I’m keeping a commonplace-book-diary hybrid. Every morning I write out a quote from Seneca’s letters and then I reflect on it—I’ll share these quotes in our January Commonplace Book Club, which begins tomorrow.
As 2024 draws to a close, it is time for the fourth edition of our Anniversary Post! As you might remember, when I put out a call for readers to share their note-taking practices, I got such an overwhelming response, I split this post into installments (read parts I, II, and III).
Here is the first installment of Part IV, on how readers record their days in diaries. This post got too long, so you’ll get the second part in the new year. I hope these brilliant practices inspire you to return to your diary—or, perhaps, to pick one up for the first time.
Recording Places
Our lives unfold in specific locations. One way to mark our days, then, is to focus on the places we’ve been. And, in a world that feels increasingly digital, increasingly unhooked from the earth, I like the idea of grounding one’s diary in particular places.
Robert Shepherd’s “The Book of Squares”
A longtime resident of the area in central London known as Bloomsbury, Robert became interested in the location’s history. As an artist, he started to “draw and write ‘The Book of Squares’”—a record of the profound histories that occurred on the land he calls home.
This is how Robert creates his pages:
… I was hand painting, and drawing and writing on each page. Then I would scan these pages and so I was then able to rework on top of them. Then scanning them again, and so keeping all the layers. The sediments. And thus I was trying to create a rich deep feel to the work. It felt like they were a part of a richly layered cake. And my ‘studio’ had thus become this whole area of Bloomsbury. And yet at times I was and am often even trespassing south into Soho and or Covent Garden.
I asked Robert how he thought about the interplay between words and images and this is what he said:
Basically I have fought hard to keep the words and the images as completely equivalent. And because I believe there is a hierarchy in the Establishment English mentality, that of the words being more important than the images. Thus making the images mere illustrations or servants to the words. This to me is all wrong. So with the inspiration of William Blake and others in my book I wage a war against this. But my civil war is waged purely with words and with images and of course it’s not with bombs nor with guns even figuratively.
Robert’s book lingers on history and advances forward to the present. He writes,
But my book also comes right up to date and it includes references to the sixties, to the Beatles, and to the squatting movement in this area, and to rave culture, and to all the gentrification, and to Brexit, and to lockdown and to Covid.
’s Mapped Moments
While Robert documents the profound histories of place, Sonja maps personal histories. When Sonja first moved to Paris, Google Maps didn’t exist, so she carried around a small notebook and drew her own tiny maps,
marking places where memorable moments happened—like a great bar where I had drinks with my friend Sam or a vernissage I attended with my friend Maisie.
Over time, Sonja developed a career as a map-maker. You can see some of her maps on her website.
In 2020, she began a practice she called “mapping moments.”
I still take notes, and the ones I'm sharing with you are from 2020, a practice I now call "mapping moments."
Here are a few of the moments Sonja captured from her life in France:
Sonja sees “space as a collection of experiences, emotions, and shared moments” which she records in her notebooks. Note the small map she’s drawn above the painting:
You can learn more about Sonja’s work here.
’s Travel Journal
If you’d like to add watercolor illustrations to your diary, you might follow Amy’s practice and paste a square of watercolor paper on your pages. Throw your supplies in a backpack and hit the road. Then you’ll have everything you need to create a visual representation of your trip.
Here’s how Amy describes her practice:
During Covid I started watercoloring and following a lot of Substack artists. There was so much encouragement to just start, draw while you're waiting, and to take notes in visual form. I began taping squares of watercolor paper in my journal when I traveled. In my backpack, I now have a little bag with a pencil, sharpener, muji pen, tiny tin of watercolors, paper towel, and paper cup.
Recently, when stranded in England (flat tire), I pulled it out and got a sketch of the Lakes District where Beatrix Potter wandered and wrote about. A visual helps me remember an experience better because it has captions, dates, history, descriptions, and feelings of a place written alongside my small visual. This practice also keeps me off my phone - and delights strangers everywhere! I like to think that it might also serve as a little creative inspiration to others.
Here are a few pages that document Amy’s time in Scotland:
Read more of Amy’s work at
.Documenting a Day
So much happens in a single day—the question becomes: how do we document it all? Some of Noted’s readers came up with brilliant methods:
’s Lists
The cartoonist-comedian, Hilary, describes a common problem: how do we store everything we want to remember? It often feels overwhelming. This is where lists come in.
And, here’s how Hilary describes her practice:
A couple of years ago, after always having so much anxiety about "REMEMBERING EVERYTHING!! NEVER MISS SOMETHING THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE FUNNY!!!!" I decided instead of writing and drawing every little thing, which of course one has the time to do, I'd just make lists. At the end of every day, a vomit list. No full sentences, just bullet points. What I saw, what I thought about, anything that made me chuckle…My lists read like poetry to me. They were mundane, they were horrifying, they were a riot. Whenever something odd happened, I'd get so excited because it could go on the list. And whenever I had writers' block, I could turn to my lists. If nothing inspired me today, maybe something inspired me 3 months ago? They have honestly changed my life even though that sounds ridiculous!
You can see more of Hilary’s work—and peek into her sketchbook— at Cartoons by Hilary.
’s Illustrated Diary
I find comics endlessly fascinating for the efficient way they encapsulate information. Just a few strokes of the pen and a cartoonist can capture a feeling that would take several sentences to describe. So, I love Jane Porter’s practice of recording her days in cartoon form. She explains:
I note all the daily happenings and use it to process, record, and inspire. This habit has led to poems and stories as well as helping me remember both small and big events and all the minutiae in between.
Jane continues,
I love dipping back in to see what I was immersed in a year ago, or five years ago, and to discern narratives in my own life that I might not have been aware of at the time. It’s helped me make sense of big life events, and remember the sights, sounds and smells of the ordinary (such as unblocking the sink) to the extraordinary (pulled under by big waves).
See more of Jane’s work at
.I hope this post offered you some new practices to expand the way you think about keeping a diary!
Noted is fueled by you. Your ❤️’s and comments inspire me. As always, I’d love to know your thoughts: which of these methods inspired you? What practices would you like to borrow?
Yours in Note-Taking,
P.S. I’ll be back tomorrow with practical guidelines for joining our January Commonplace Book Club!
I have been QUITE ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH ! I've become so DIGITIZED that I sent out Christmas EMAILS. EMAILS ! ( it bore repeating & emphasis, methinks ). I wanted to keep SOME THINGS *Non - digital* It's Sisyphean !
just what I needed on a day when no words seem to come to the page - thank you!