I just filled up a notebook, and it occurred to me that I might
share its front page as an example of one way to set up a
notebook. Steal/adapt/scoff as you see fit. Here’s the first page; the
explanation is below.

So,
as you can see, it’s divided into two basic columns. The left column is
a kind of Table of Contents. Every day, I list the date, a title for
what I’m writing (most of these correspond with chapter titles for my work-in-progress), and the
starting page. This makes the notebook searchable.

The right column is a calendar. Every day that I write gets an X.
This is an easy visual way for me to track my frequency over the course
of several months. If I’m going to miss more than a couple of days
because of a trip or something, I put a little line through the dates
and add a note.

This indexing technique is adapted from the world of bullet journaling.
The notebook itself (which I would be wondering about if I was reading
this post) is a spiral bound sketching journal from Walmart. $5.77 for
150 pages. I like it because the spiral binding allows it to lay flat,
and the paper is thick enough that the ink doesn’t bleed through to the
other side.

That you should find a notebook you love half as much is the urgent hope of your faithful correspondent,

Furunicorn