Disc-bound Notebooks - Short Review

One advantage that I didn't expand on in the main article on paper is that a notebook and pen remains a very portable solution for making notes. Digital devices that can record handwriting do exist (e.g. iPad, reMarkable 2) but they are expensive and still not as easy to use as paper. Voice input is a promising solution but is not quite good enough, especially if you don't have a mid-California accent or if you want to use words that Google/Apple/Amazon have not thought about yet.

Finding a great notebook isn't easy. Will it lie flat when you open it? Is the paper good enough so you can use both sides? However, there are also more conceptual problems. What if I want to insert something into pages I have already written? Or write something in this notebook I brought with me that belongs in a different notebook?

One answer is the disc-binding system. A number of companies make them, but the one I found first when I was looking was Atoma. The key advantage of disc-binding is that sheets can easily be removed and added, but the hold is both more secure and less bulky than a ring binder. (I am yet to come across an A5 ring binder I wanted to carry for making notes.)

A notebook is quite a personal thing, so I don't know if you'll like a disc-bound one. What I will say is that if you find that making notes on your phone doesn't quite work, but have always felt constrained by the sewn in pages of those nice notebooks everyone else seems to use, maybe this approach might work for you.