Moleskine Volant Daily Planner Hack

Moleskine Volant Daily Planner hack uses a a paper clasp and paper folds.

The Moleskine Volant Daily Planners are are easy to use because of their thin profile and small size, but they lack an elastic strap and a ribbon place marker. This simple set of hacks will bring your Volant planner up to speed and add a pen holder, too. These solutions were shared with me by my good friend Alex, who will be a freshman in college this fall.

A Colorful Paper Clasp Will Keep Your Planner Closed and Add A Pen Holder

I was struck by the simplicity of this hack. Not only does a paper clasp do a great job of keeping  the Volant planner closed, it can also be used to keep a pen with your planner. You can also use it to anchor your planner to larger books or notebooks. Paper clasps come in a variety of sizes and colors enabling you to to create the perfect combination of  function and design.

Just clip on a paper clasp in your favorite color, fold back the arms, and your planner will stay closed and relatively flat. If you leave a little room between the bottom of the clip and the pages, you can slide a pen along the side. If you prefer to attach the pen using a pen clip, no problem, just slide the clasp towards the top of the planner and clip your pen on the corner of the clasp.

Origami-Inspired Paper Folds Keep You On Track In Style

Organization doesn’t have to be boring to be effective. Simple paper folds for days that have passed create a  beautiful place holder in your planner.  By folding the corners into the middle of the planner, alternating between the top and bottom, a v-shaped indentation is formed. This leaves a perfect, thumb-sized place to open to the current day. If you have days or pages that have passed that you want to refer to quickly, no problem, just color the folds for easy recall.

By folding the page corners of previous days into the planner in an alternating pattern, you can create a beautiful tab for the current planning day. Add colors and change the folds to create the look that suits you best.

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Creating Password Storage with a Leuchtturm Mini Address Book

Leuchtturm's Mini Address Book is perfect for storing your secret passwords and user IDs.

Recently, a customer contacted me to order a Leuchtturm Mini Address Book and shared a notebook hack with me. She told me she uses her Mini Address Book to store all of her online and electronic user IDs and passwords. I loved this idea and decided to organize all of my passwords alphabetically.

The alphabetized sections make it easy to organize with one letter of the alphabet per page. If you need more room, use two Mini Address Books. They are affordable at just $2.99 each and won't break your budget.

The Mini Address Book is about the same size as a credit card so it slides into a card slot in my wallet. It takes me about 3 seconds to access, and I don’t have to worry about data crashing or electronic failures. I currently have all of these details stored in my cell phone/PDA, but it is a real hassle to open the software and search through the database. And what happens if I forget my password to this software?

Leuchtturm Mini Address Book fits perfectly into the credit card slot in your wallet.

I am very happy to have a paper backup of this information and find myself using it before I pull out my electronic password software.

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Free Monthly Calendar Inserts For Your Moleskine, Ciak, Cartesio & Rhodia Planners

I love pocket planners, but most don’t include a usable monthly calender with the current week. This has always frustrated me, so I created a set of small Monthly Calendars that are available as a free download at www.journalingarts.com.

The Monthly Calendars measure 4¾” x 3¼” and were designed to fit into Moleskine, Ciak, Cartesio, and Rhodia planners and will also fit into the back envelope for storage. Use one as a bookmark and you’ll always have your month to view where you need it.

Slide a Monthly Calendar into your Moleskine planner and use it as a bookmark to keep your monthly overview close at hand.

Each season is designated by a color and design. The free downloads are in color, but will print beautifully in black & white on your laser printer.

There is also a free download of lined Notecards that was designed to fit on the back of the calendars, but can be used alone for adding Notecards to your planning. You can print these out on the backside of your calendars by printing on both sides of your paper. The Notecards and Calendars were designed to line up properly when printed on both sides.

Free Notecards download can be used alone or with the Monthly Calendars for additional organization.

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Create a Pen Holder For Your Moleskine Large Daily Planner

With classic good looks and sophisticated style, Moleskine planners scream for a high-style companion pen. The Large Daily Planner has a unique feature not found on other Moleskine notebooks or planners; a void in between the pages and the spine which is perfect for holding a thin pen. Not only is this convenient, but it gives you the opportunity keep a pen with your planner that expresses your modern lifestyle.

In the photos below, I used 2 different pens in the void, Tombow’s Zoom 727 and 707 ballpoint pens because of their modern designs and thin profiles. Both pens have a clip on the end which helps hold the pen securely in place and the stylish red dots contrast nicely with the black color of the spine. When using this method, you will have a small portion of the pen or pencil protruding from the top. You can also completely conceal your writing instrument by using the pressure method shown below.

The Clip Method

1. Open your Moleskine Large Daily Planner and find the opening at the top formed between the spine and pages.
2. Insert the body of a slim pen into the void in between the spine and the page binding. Push into the slot until the clip is secured on the edge of the spine.

The Pressure Method
No Clip? No Problem
Pens and pencils without clips can be used as long as they are slim enough to fit into the void and fat enough to fit snugly when the planner is closed. The pressure on the void in the spine increases as you close the planner, securing the pen when fully closed. The elastic strap holds it together, making this a fairly secure space for your pen or pencil. When you open the planner, the pen or pencil will fall out or can be pushed out with your pinky. You might want to experiment with different pens to get one that is a good fit because if it is too loose, your pen will not fall out. When using the clip method, the silver Tombow Zoom 727 ballpoint pen shown in the photo hase the best fit I have found but I am sure that there are others that would work as well.

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Enter Your Best Moleskine Hacks and Win a Lifetime Supply of Moleskine Notebooks

Now through May 31, 2009, you have a chance to win a lifetime supply of Moleskine notebooks by submitting your best Moleskine Hacks at www.moleskine.com. The best ideas will be shown in My Moleskine 2.0 Exhibition and will have the chance to receive one of these prizes:

• 1st prize: a lifetime supply of Moleskine notebooks*;
• 2nd prize: collection of 25 Moleskine notebooks and diaries;
• 3rd prize: collection of 15 Moleskine notebooks and diaries;
• All other selected entries: set of 3 Moleskine notebooks.

For details, visit www.moleskine.com or click this link: http://www.moleskine.com/events/my_moleskine_20_competition_1.php.

(*Limited to 5 notebooks per year over a period of 50 years)

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Create a Pen Holder Using Your Moleskine Journal’s Ribbon and Elastic Strap

Keeping a pen attached to your Moleskine journal or planner is easy, if you know how. There are several ways you can do this without adding anything extra other than a pen and some ingenuity. This will work with all of Moleskine’s large, hard-cover notebooks but it especially nice on the large Daily Planner because of its extra thickness. This hack will work well in most situations, although I would not recommend it in a harsh or abusive environment or because of the risk of loss or breakage to your pen and/or elastic strap.

Here’s How:

You’ll need a pen that has a clip near the end and is similar in length as the width of your large  Moleskine journal, about 5 ¼” or less . This method works best on the hardcover Moleskine planners and notebooks. I used a Tombow 707 Zoom pen because of its thin profile, but a standard sized pen will work, too. You could do this with the large soft cover planners, but because of the flexible cover, it will not be as secure.

1. Open your planner in the middle so the pages are flat and pull the ribbon away from the pages.
2. Put the tip of your pen at the top of the planner where the ribbon emerges from the spine. Wrap the ribbon around the tip of the pen until it feels snug and any slack is gone.
3. Put the pen on top of the planner’s pages and close the planner on the ribbon making sure the ribbon stays tight around the pen.
4. Align the pen along the top without extending beyond the width of the planner. Slide the elastic band over the top of the planner and pen, the slip the band underneath the pen clip, pulling it as close to the end of the pen as the clip will allow. Place the remaining band over the front of the planner and into place. Voila, an instant pen holder!

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Organize Your Moleskine Notebook Into Sections Without Tabs

If you want to organize your notebook but you don’t want to deal with sticky tabs or other items that poke out from the edges of your Moleskine notebook, this simple hack is for you. Using a marker, you can create sections simply by coloring the edges of your notebook. Be sure to use a water-based or a non-bleeding marker if you don’t want the color to seep into the pages.

If you prefer a monotone look, you can color every other section of your journal with a black marker.

1. Select the pages for your first section of your notebook

2. Slide a clean piece of paper into the notebook behind the last page of your section. Make sure the paper sticks out on the top, bottom and the side. Push the paper as close to the binding as possible.

3. Fold the paper that is sticking out away from your section. Add a second piece of paper in front of your section and fold it the opposite direction. These pieces of paper will protect the other pages in your Moleskine from being colored and will keep your sections straight.

4. Once you have inserted both pieces of paper, your notebook will look like this. Before you color the edges with markers, be sure to squeeze the pages together tightly. If the pages are not compressed, the ink might find its way between the pages. You can also compress the journal between your hand and the edge of a flat surface using even pressure.

5. Apply color to the edges of your pages. Repeat for the top and bottom edges of your journal. Remember to squeeze the pages tightly.

6. A Completed, organized journal.

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