Pocket Notebook

My alumni rep assigned to my region contacted me about a year ago. Though my donations over the years would barely qualify for having my name engraved on a flush handle, I had referred the previous representative to a more accomplished classmate in the same city who chaired a medical school department.  He made a huge gift.  The referral got me an online invitation to a small-group meeting with the University President.  More  recently, the new alumni rep arranged for us to chat over a beer.

As a promotional gift, he left me with a chocolate colored genuine Moleskine notebook embossed with the University seal.  It remains in mint condition, unopened, on an honored surface of my desk, its matching elastic cord still keeping the pages shut.  I had never used one of these.  For much of my career, I depended on a seven-ring Franklin Planner, investing time to create core values, then intermediate and long term objectives,  Each day I listed tasks with priorities, just as the Franklin Planner tapes instructed.  Retirement largely retired my daily organizer, though I still revise what initiatives I plan to pursue twice a year.  Each Sunday morning, I list the items whose progress would comprise a Good Week, then every evening I create a list of activities for the following day.  All on loose sheets of paper using color coded pens.  I have desk journals, marble or spiral books obtained at back to school sales.  Each week I monitor my exercise progress.  Each day I select three personal achievements worth recording.  And at the suggestion of a Harvard professor, I mark something each day that annoyed me, then revisit this observation one month and six months later.  So I am very used to maintaining personal notebooks for different purposes.  Yet it would never occur to me to keep one on my person to pull out randomly, let alone pay a premium to acquire and maintain one like that moleskine.

Periodically, I receive gift cards, sometimes to Amazon, which I assign to frivolity.  Maybe I could use a pocket notebook.  Since these sell for many times what my marble or spiral notebooks cost, they must have a justification for that premium.  Indeed, as I searched YouTube trying to decide which to get, I encountered a notebook or high-end stationery subculture.  Ratings of different brands.  Quality of paper.  Lined, grid, dotted, or plain paper.  Some did not handle fountain pens or even gel pens very well, with smudging and commonly bleeding through to the reverse side.  Bindings that allow some to lay flat better than others.  Little frills, like a small envelope near the back cover to insert loose paper fragments, paper clips, and thin magnets.  Some come with an elastic pen loop, others offer a sticky pad with elastic to create one.  My local Target, Staples, and Barnes & Noble all carry displays of Moleskines in a variety of sizes, also standardized by the industry as A or B series followed by a code number indicating size.  Target had only Moleskine, which had gotten many critical YouTube reviews, often at a cost above $12.  Staples had a house brand.  Amazon had several brands. though only moleskine in pocket size.  Amazon had all the brands assessed by the YouTube content creators.  I selected on Amazon a two pack made by a Japanese company.  Lined paper, two flimsy ribbons as bookmarks, tiny envelope at the back.  I added an adhesive address label to which I added my cell phone number should I lose it.  One notebook went atop my University's Moleskine gift, the other into my cross-chest pouch.

These notebooks typically become EDC or Every Day Carry items.  I have mine.  My smartphone, two kippot, a microfiber lens cloth, and a cloth face mask not used since the COVID years in my left pocket.  Keys, coin pouch, and handkerchief to the right.  A Flash drive in the coin pouch.  And an overstuffed wallet in the left back pocket.  A wristwatch. My bifocals.  I also purchased a nylon cross chest carrier for an overseas trip.  When I go to OLLI or short errands, I sling this over my neck.  It has paper, a multicolored pen, foldable rain poncho, microrecorder, sunglass clip-ons, earphne.  My new Aisbugur pocket notebook wedges perfectly over the poncho.  After pasting a sticky with my name and address at the inside cover and adding my cell phone number, I took it to a coffee shop.  It took less than half a porcelain mug to date and fill out the first page.

Key decision point.  How to use this.  The library lent me an ebook on the history of notebooks which have acquired a myriad of purposes since first appearing in Italy when commercial paper became economical.  Notebooks of various sizes became the prototype for business accounting ledgers, personal diaries, collections of thoughts, preliminary sketches for artists, venting of various types, planning ones day, lists for shopping or errands.  I decided to dedicate mine to recording what I think at the time I write in it.

These undertakings go better with rules.  It had been my initial intent to rent some space at a coffee shop for a half-hour in the form of a purchse, while I sit undistracted.  Each page would have a date, prompted by a printed Date at the top of each page.  The lined paper would be filled to the bottom with sentences, then closed, with the elastic strap moved to mark where I left off.  Not continued on the next page.  I made a quick modification.  I did not need the isolation of a coffee shop, just the coffee and a few moments of focus on a small page that reflected my observations, aspirations, and irritations.  That has worked well.  No competition with phone, laptop, or even Daily Task List as I fill each page with cursive in ball-point that does not seep into the reverse page.  I did not reserve two pages for an index, though as I reach the end, I could jot down what appears on each page.  They do not come pre-numbered, though.  Indeed, some notebooks have perforated margins that enable users to detach pages.  For me, I have designated it not as a diary that records things I have done, nor a surrogate psychiatrist where I can express what I feel.  It is a place to write text, to connect mind to paper.  A useful tool, dedicated to a purpose, much like my marble and spiral books.  

YouTube videos greatly expand the culture of these books and the different instruments that people use to enter content.  I found people like me, fascinated by pens.  Previous Amazon gift card frivolities got me two low-end fountain pens. My Flair pens come as a full multi-colored set, stored in a separate pouch of Burberry Plaid.  Apparently, Japan hosts stationery expos where people can sample pens with different inks and price points, stationery products though screens have replaced premium Crane's paper and most professional letterhead for correspondence.  The pocket notebook, with its assigned purpose, becomes one element of linking brain to paper, whether the record be disposable or permanent.  

Thus far, I have found my new pocket notebook a worthy destination, a valued partner with a mug of brewed coffee, and a setting apart from competing distractions.

Storage Rental

One of my more inane monthly expenditures has been a small storage unit.  When first rented following the closure of my office nine years ago, it seemed a necessity.  I had financial records, employment records, books, more office supplies than I could give away, a large photocopier, a tall cherry red bookcase from Ikea, oodles of books.  And then I retired from the job that followed, with contents of desk drawers that belonged to me, not the hospital.  Some $18K in fees later, I am paying monthly to house stuff that I don't want.  The statute of limitations on financial records has lapsed, not that I could find any if requested.  The medical records were stored elsewhere and destroyed when the required storage time elapsed.  It's time to divest of the storage fees.  The only item that I know I want is that bookcase which will house quite a lot of books in my bedroom.

In the meantime, I have emptied most of my home files and made a commitment to myself to clean the basement, partly to have a single storage area in my home and partly for a form of end-of-life planning so my survivors do not have to pay somebody to do this. 

At three boxes a week, I can now see the floor of that storage unit.  Much has gone to shredding.  Office supplies need a home, which for now is two baskets in the lower hall.  My Franklin Planner accumulation has gone to a mixture of shredding and paper recycle.  Diplomas of various types have just come home, a closet to be identified for their indefinite storage.  I remain on schedule for the end of the year.  What to do with the money saved?  It will be something celebratory.

Weekly Planning

It's been some 25 years since I first read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  The type of goal setting that he described came fairly naturally to me, though my lists were too long and not categorized well enough.  One piece of advice that permanently changed was time perspectives.  While I always had what I should do today and what I need to do this semester and what am I pursuing toward graduation, my planning had always been day to day.  His guidance changed the perspective to a week.  So now I have a semi-annual list of projects in categories compiled every June and December.  But instead of the Franklin Planner approach of day to day, the perspective has been to incorporate parts of six months into each week.  I think that is a much better goal breakdown.  Seven day blocks have been the norm since Biblical times, probably for a reason.  Each Sunday morning, excepted only for yontiff, I look at the six month projects and determine what I should be able to do this week.  Activities for the week that are part of that six month effort get a colored highlight.  Each night I take the weekly list and select a daily array of stuff that I need to select from, as the list always exceeds what I can do, but urgencies get done and non-urgent priorities get pursued. 

So this week I should be able to complete my third day trip, either to New York or the Harley Factory in plain old York.  There is a meeting with my financial advisor who helped me computerize my assets.  I need to review my Medicare Part D program.  Clearing my upstairs study has not gone as well as some of the other initiatives because the weekly projects seem to lack the task specificity of the others.  My weight has gone nowhere though I have done reasonably well on the intermediate steps to lose those ten pounds.  I keep weekly records and while I have not lost any, my weight and waist circumference have remained static for two years. 

Come next week, we return to December, that semiannual review of what has gone well, what fell short, what merits continuation, and what directions should get revised.  But overall, it's been a useful system.

Ready for Work

It's still early, my second cup of coffee dripping from the Mr. Coffee discounted Keurig brewer.  A Black Tiger Extra Bold K-Cup splashed with Cinnamon Dolce Cream International Delight creamer that has a longer refrigerator life than real milk.  My morning usually starts something like this.  The electric toothbrush has already done its work, other grooming and dressing for the pageant of the workplace will come shortly.

There is still about an hour before I actually have to turn on the ignition, put on KYW Newsradio 1060 to hear Traffic on the 2's so that I get to Mercy Philadelphia Hospital in advance of the first patient.  I sort of outline the day's tasks:

1. Morning at the 52nd Street Satellite location
2. Update the February Billing so I can submit it next week
3. Assign a couple of consults to my Resident
4. Maybe contact somebody from the Leonard Davis Institute about a Research Project
5. See whoever comes into the office
6. Round in the hospital
7. The usual phone calls
8. Maybe catch up on prescription faxes

Everything adds up.  There is stuff to do at home as well, particularly polishing this week's Torah reading project for which I left myself too little preparation time and decide how I want to spend my monthly outing the following weekend.  I used to plan all this every Sunday in my Franklin Planner but now that would be a hopeless task so I use some morning time to outline what I should be doing during each day.  Some interruption usually arises and my own dedication to schedule has never been faithful so what I intend in the morning rarely reaches completion by quitting time.  At least I start today reasonably rested, not irritated with anything or anybody, and generally ready if not enthused to tackle the various short term tasks and long term projects.

Prosperity

Each day I trudge off to Mercy Philadelphia Hospital to take care of whoever somebody asks me to see.  Insurance companies pay them for what I do.  In exchange a deposit of a larger sum than I've ever earned before finds its way to my account at PNC Bank biweekly which then accumulates until the Washington University tuition payment becomes due.  When I take $60-100 from the cash machine every couple of weeks for my own expenses, the balance on the receipt seems to grow most of the time.

Yet I do not live differently or even have these proceeds earmarked for anything in particular other than those relatively finite tuition payments.  Prosperity has both a reality and a mindset.  "Who is rich?  One who finds pleasure in his portion." [Pirke Avot 4:1]  There is a challenge to earn that income, a satisfaction inherent in acquiring skill and applying it for a purpose that has value.  Accumulating money, though, should never be an end in its own right.  There are funds for personal maintenance, investments in the future, protection for the might happen, some for generosity to others, and some for indulgences that bring their own pleasure but are of low priority.

Earning this comes at the expense of time and energy.  The day usually starts while still dark outside and ends while darkness has reappeared.  Much of the time is spend with patients and junior colleagues, which may be a form of indulgence in itself, considering what most other people do for their livelihood.  For all the strains and periodic pressures, I am hard pressed to think of anything else I would rather be doing from one day to the next.  Maybe having a little more protected time to write or to do a research project without patients coming at me randomly in some form.  But for the most part the means of earning income has its own personal satisfaction so spending those proceeds on my own hedonism is probably less of a goal for me than for others who accumulate their extra funds in a more onerous way from which they have a greater need of escape.

As I approach a year and a half of salaried employment, I find myself less generous rather than more in my tzedakah.  I still give the same amount, allocated each month with a note of appreciation to every recipient.  But the donations no longer occur on time, instead getting clustered into a few at a time.  I've not given to United Way or my alma mater or even the WashU Hillel, not because of any reduction in fondness for them but because of competing strains on more limited discretionary time.  I've made an effort to schedule some time with myself, usually to go out for breakfast on either a Saturday or Sunday morning.  This may be a concession to more money, since in the past I would go to Sweeney's Bakery around the corner on Saturday morning for a $1 coffee and on Sunday to Einstein Bagels with my 99 cent refill mug and my Franklin Planner to look over the week.  Now the breakfast is only one day but more ample.  It has been my custom for a couple of years to go to a place I've not been before once a month.  Usually it is someplace local like a new store but now I travel a little farther on a day trip once a month with a budget of about $100, maybe a little more if I start doing overnight excursions this coming spring. And if I get a performance bonus I would like to replace the ordinary tub in the main bathroom with a jacuzzi.  My concession to creature comfort that I would not have otherwise afforded myself.


Yes, prosperity is a mind-set.  Frugality a beneficial habit that has served me well and is unlikely to undergo drastic revision by a larger savings account.

Shabbat Prep

End of the work week, end of the summer.  Very early on Friday morning with a few tasks separating me from a shabbat respite, or if not a respite, then a change of pace.  I made the foundation of dinner:  flanken and Israeli couscous with sauteed onions and mushrooms.  Then some cauliflower to parboil before lichtbentschen.  When I get to the office, I will put my coins in the Pushka, then bring the pushka to my car, as this is the final Friday that I expect to be in my office.  Maybe I will empty the Pushka, put the coins in the TD Bank coin counter and write a check for the proceeds to the Hebrew school like I usually do at the start of their school year.  It will probably be the final tzedakah check from my office account.

On Fridays I do a double portion with my Franklin Planner, outlining both Friday and Saturday anticipated tasks.  I also think about where I will attend services, usually Beth Emeth for Kabbalat Shabbat and AKSE on Shabbat Morning.  This week I also need to pick up some mini-challot, either from Trader Joe's or Safeway.  Come the end of the workday, the tasks will close, the majority typically not done, to be half-heartedly restarted when the sun goes down Saturday and more vigorously shortly after sunrise on Sunday.

While shabbos is different, is it really better, as people tell me it should be?  Definitely a difficult question to analyze, but for now I'm content just leaving it different.