Tools That Work For The Solopreneur Life: The Moleskine Notebook

What is your favorite device for capturing spur-of-the-moment ideas, the ones that pop into your head when you’re not at your desk? If you don’t have a device that’s always with you, then you’re losing inspirations that could be valuable to your solopreneur life.

I attended a convention in January where of the sponsors gave each attendee a notebook called a Moleskine. I’ve never been fond of notebooks, but I’ve this one now for three months and I really like it! The Moleskine:

• Is bound in oilcloth-covered cardboard;
• Has thicker-than-normal, cream-color, acid-free paper;
• Is nicely sized (8.4×5.2×0.7 inches)—small enough to be carried easily;
• Has a sewn spine that allows it to lie flat when opened;
• Has a ribbon bookmark;
• Has a really neat elastic closure.

This notebook just feels right. As a result, I keep it with me and it’s there when inspiration taps me on the shoulder. In the past two weeks alone I’ve captured about a dozen ideas that otherwise would’ve been lost.

According to Moleskine.com, notebooks with the same features as the Moleskine were a popular standard in 19th- and 20th-century Europe, handmade by small French bookbinding houses (solopreneurs?!) who supplied the stationery shops of Paris. The notebooks became a prominent creative tool for avant-garde artists who enjoyed drawing and writing outdoors, putting down impressions on paper, painting from life in the streets and cafés, and capturing extemporary scenes, ideas, and emotions.

Legend has it that Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Henri Matisse used the notebooks. The late travel writer Bruce Chatwin gave the notebooks the Moleskine name.

The notebooks lost favor over time, but in 1997 a small company in Milan named Modo & Modo brought back this type of notebook. Unable to keep up with customer demand, Modo & Modo sold the Moleskine trademark in 2006 to a French investment fund. The notebooks are distributed in 53 countries through 14,000 stores, the majority of which are booksellers. Amazon sells them for $12.21—and I think they’re worth every penny!