(2026-02-09) Notebooks story by Imogen Clarke

Notebooks story by Imogen Clarke. I first found out about the notebooks from David. Interesting that somebody so pedestrian would change my life, but I suppose it had to come from somebody.

He found out from his therapist. David was the last person I knew who was still doing therapy. Even Sophie couldn’t afford it anymore and she got pay raises in line with inflation.

I dismissed the idea at first. It sounded like something I’d tried before. Bullet journals. Morning pages. Daily gratitudes. Hadn’t made a difference. “You didn’t use enough notebooks,” David said. “You need at least three.” That was the baseline. If you were doing ok, you needed three. But complicated people, with serious problems, creative inclinations, difficult thoughts, for them three was not enough.

“I’m starting with ten,” David said. I immediately went out and bought fifteen. We all did. We just didn’t tell David how many. He was very insecure about the fact he didn’t have a diagnosed mental illness. We had to be mindful of that.

I didn’t start using my notebooks until I saw how they worked in practice. It was at Ben and Sophie’s house, maybe a week later. Ten minutes into the lentil ragu, David suddenly put down his fork, reached into his pocket and extracted a manila A6 notebook. Impressively nondescript. A flash of panic came over Claire’s face. Her notebooks were probably pink or purple or yellow

She was already doing it wrong. I stuck a big piece of garlic baguette into my mouth to hide my smirk and made sure to observe David carefully. I’d decided to be the best at notebooks.

The whole thing is hysterical/horrifying, if you're a digital gardener.