How Do You Use a Field/Pocket Notebook?

[Paddler]

I keep a notebook in my shirt pocket, along with an Esterbrook SJ loaded with a bulletproof ink. I keep new story ideas, quotations, anything I may want to remember verbatim later. When the notebook fills up, I transfer information for permanent reference to my commonplace book. I then make a new refill for the notebook and sew it into the leather cover I made. The old notebook then goes into a box where it is filed by date.

Edited to add: My pocket notebook has a center section that contains information that is not likely to change often: a few phone numbers, part numbers for oil, air, and fuel filters in the car, mower, tiller,etc., watch battery numbers. This center section is just folded in to the main notebook. When the notebook gets full, I pull this center section out, fold the new, empty paper around it and sew it into the leather cover. I always have this information handy and don't have to keep copying it into new notebooks when they fill up.

On wilderness canoe trips, I take a waterproof notebook and pencil and make a log of the trip. When I return I use the log to flesh out an entry in my trip journal. This is done in ink on paper. I usually copy the journal contents into a computer file and share it with the other members on the trip.