<![CDATA[Carrie Butler | Award-winning Author

My name is Carrie, and I had a problem.

I love notebooks—especially when they’re new. There’s an inherit optimism to having all those blank pages ahead of you, ready to contain the musings flitting about your mind. With their crisp edges and smooth writing surfaces, you can almost believe you’re on the verge of getting your life together. Almost.
Then you’re ten pages deep with project notes, and you have to jot down a quick grocery list. No problem, right? Tear it out carefully, and it was never there—except you didn’t tear it out carefully. Like an infomercial’s black-and-white “before” footage, you botched it. Now you’re debating the best way to surgically remove the remainder, when you get an idea for another one of your projects. Hold on. That goes in a different notebook. Et cetera, et cetera...

Or maybe you’ve tried digitizing. Programs like Evernote are perfect for amassing research articles, typing quick notes, and organizing things into “notebooks,” but if you’re like me, you need to brainstorm on paper. That usually means taking a picture or resurrecting your forgot-it-existed scanner to get some faint recreation. Meh.

Thankfully, last year, I found the perfect marriage of these two concepts: a reusable notebook that connects to the cloud. I know, I know. I sound even more like an infomercial now, but hear me out, because I didn’t come back from my blogging retirement for my benefit—though, I am using affiliate links in this post, because this is a product I actively use and love. Behold, the Rocketbook Everlast!

How Does It Work?

The notebook itself—at least, the executive version I have—feels like a standard spiral bound. Inside the front cover, however, you’ll find a list of seven symbols with blanks next to them: the Rocketbook logo, a diamond, an apple, a bell, a four-leaf clover, a star, and a horseshoe. These are important, because faint outlines of the same symbols are printed at the bottom of each page. They’re what you mark to designate where a page goes once it’s scanned, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
There are thirty-six reusable, dot-grid pages. Notebook junkies will recognize this format from bullet journaling, of which I am a fan, but Rocketbook has since released a lined version. The paper itself is synthetic and very smooth.
You can use any pen, highlighter, or marker from the Pilot FriXion line to write or draw. This is particularly cool, because you can pick up Pilot FriXion pens just about anywhere. You don’t have to special order them when you run out. One caveat here, though. You do have to wait about 15 seconds for your ink to physically bond with the paper before you can touch it or turn the page. In my experience, you can just tilt the notebook to see if anything is still shiny/wet. It’s not a big deal, and the payoff is worth it.
Let’s say you’ve filled your page. Remember those symbols I mentioned earlier? Using the Rocketbook app, you can assign each one to a different service, e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, OneNote, Slack, iCloud or email. That way, when you mark through one or more of the symbols printed at the bottom, the app knows where to send the page scan(s). The process is ridiculously fast. A quick tap of the camera button in-app focuses on the four corners of your page, including a small QR code. The image is snapped and sent to a deck below, where you have the option to discard it or proceed. Placing a different page in-view will result in that content being added to the first, i.e. say you want a multi-page .pdf. Whenever you’re ready to move on, tap “Next”.

BEFORE

AFTER

At this point, if you forgot to mark a symbol, it will ask which of your pre-assigned destinations you want to use. A preview is then generated, and let me tell you something. This not a photo of your notebook. Using their patented technology, Rocketbook takes the ink bonded to that synthetic page and recreates a darker, crisper version of your work. It’s gorgeous and ready to go. All you have to do is tap “Send”.
With your work secure in the cloud, all you have to do is wipe your page down with a damp cloth. That’s it. You’re ready to start fresh again. Maybe this time you can try one of their cool, time-saving hacks, like adding ## to either side of your title. Doing so automatically generates it as the file name. Or, using the same Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, you could search scans for certain words or transcribe handwritten notes to email. I swear, we're living in the future!
They're surprisingly affordable. At the time of writing this post, a Rocketbook Everlast Executive like mine runs about $32 USD—and that includes a Pilot FriXion pen and a microfiber cloth!

So, there you have it. My favorite solution for more organized, environmentally-friendly note taking. What do you think? Would you try a reusable notebook? How are you keeping track of everything, these days?

P.S. Use code FromTheFuture to get 10% off your order over $15 USD!

P.P.S. I actually backed another project of theirs, Rocketbook Beacons, last January, and they’re due to arrive any week now. When they do, I’ll be sure to post another review. These little bad boys are advertised as being able to turn your existing whiteboard into a scannable Rocketbook surface. I know. Be still, my nerdy, book-plotting heart!

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