January 28th, 2009 by Chris Eng

I’ve kept to-do lists on and off for year, and while I haven’t used them in any organized fashion in the last year or two, I thought if I was turning over a new leaf this might be the time to do it. What I need, I thought, is a pocket-sized book—preferably one divided up by days, in case I need to make notes in advance. Yeah, a day-planner, but which one? There’s plenty out there.

The first consideration (it being January and all) is one that’s on sale. The second is one that’s tasteful. The third is one that’s going to survive all year being tossed around in my bag. The winner? The Moleskine 2009 Pocket Diary—specifically, the one with a separate page for each day of the year:

It’s got an elastic to keep it shut tight and a ribbon bookmark to keep your place. Plenty of room on each page to jot down what I need to do (it’s divided in hourly gradiations, but I don’t use them for that—I’m not that anal), plus phone numbers, emails or whatever else needs jotting. It cost me $9 on sale (at 50% off), but I’ll happily be paying full price for it next year.

(And yes, that is a Sleater-Kinney sticker on it, because A) notebooks need stickers, and B) S-K are still teh awesome. For additional radness, check out Carrie Brownstein’s music blog Monitor Mix on the NPR site.)