After a few months away — and a very welcome "petition of one" from Stacy in Florida — Rob and Helen are back.

Rob has been building a public commonplace: twenty-five years of learning, typed onto index cards (possibly breaking his typewriter in the process) and slowly taking over his studio wall. Helen has been redistributing her notebook collection to a room of grateful authors, which may or may not count as cheating in the great notebook challenge. See original hoarding cast here and a revisit to the challenge of using notebooks here.

Along the way: why old publishing offices were built around attention rather than productivity, a typewritten daily planning ritual that's quietly replaced Todoist, the strange magnetism of Midori paper, a beautiful Japanese storage haul, giving away index cards to parents and why the whole world seems to be drifting back to analogue.

It's like old times. Which is rather the point of the cast.
It's good to be back.

If you'd like to see images, and more about the show - check out the companion newsletter to this episode.
https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/

In this episode of Stationery Freaks, Rob and Helen dig into the messy, essential world of scrap notes: desk pads, Post-its, legal pads, envelopes, voice memos, and the “grab whatever’s nearby” capture habit.

They explore the real question beneath the stationery: what’s the process for turning a quick note into something useful — and what happens when your capture system becomes a pile of open loops.

We cover:

• Why scrap notes exist: capturing ideas without breaking the moment
• Desk pads as “work in progress” surfaces (and why that’s a feature, not a bug)
• The threshold problem: forgetting what you went to write down the moment you change rooms
• Analog vs digital: how Rob and Helen bounce between both
• The discipline of finishing: why ideas aren’t valuable until they become something
• A practical “funnel” approach: backlog → sprouts → now (commitment increases as you narrow)
• The emotional side: cluttered desks = cluttered minds, and why clearing down helps you think
• Listener shout-outs and the surprisingly global reach of Stationery Freaks

Listener request:
Share your stationery “in the wild” or your desk setup on Instagram (doesn’t have to be pretty!) and tag @stationeryfreaksuk.

We mention:

• Mark+Fold “Glow” notebook
• Noted (Substack) by Jillian Hess
• “Analog Attorney” series (Attorney at Work) by Bull Garlington

It’s our first Stationery Freaks episode of 2026, and we’re going deep on goal setting, as we usually do for the first cast of the year.

Rob and Helen compare two different approaches to planning the year: outcomes vs lifestyle, goals vs systems, and why the “right” method depends on what helps you keep going (not what looks good on paper).

Helen shares her shift toward building routines that protect what matters - writing time, movement, mental bandwidth - plus a surprisingly brilliant charity-shop find: a Rocketbook reusable notebook for 50p.

Rob reflects on his year using a Collins ledger, talks “painted picture” thinking, and explains why reducing friction is the only way his creative work (and business) stays sustainable - including a post-mortem on the infamous Wallpaper Method.

Along the way we talk Obsidian vs Apple Notes, Todoist, habit tracking (and why it can backfire), buying stationery locally vs Amazon, and the uncomfortable truth:
between us, we’re entering 2026 with 172 unused notebooks (yes, really).
And how this year we've set ourselves the target of ending the year with fewer notebooks.

If you’re planning your year - or rebuilding your systems after they collapsed in January - this one’s for you.

Find the newsletter (with Rocketbook photos) and past episodes at stationeryfreaks.com
Instagram: @stationeryfreaksuk