I’m a stationery nerd. Always have been. My shelves are lined with notebooks both empty and full. But for a long time, I avoided using pocket-sized notebooks, despite their ubiquity and portability. I always thought, “How can anyone fit any meaningful thoughts into such a small space? I need my journals to be at least A5-sized; gives me room to breathe.” I guess I was a bit of a stationery size queen back then… but now I’ve seen the light!

I’ve been walking around with a Field Notes notebook tucked into my bag for about a year now, and have noticed big changes in my creative workflow as a result – my songs and blog posts are better, and I don’t have to constantly scrounge for ideas, because most of my good ones get written down immediately in this tiny little notebook. It’s with me everywhere I go, and (unlike my phone) it doesn’t accost me with distracting notifications as soon as I pick it up – so when I have an idea, I actually keep it in my head long enough to write it down and can then come back to it later, which hasn’t always been the case when I’ve used my phone to store ideas.

While I took up this mini-notebook-keeping practice for creative purposes, I’ve found that it’s improved my sex life as well, both solo and partnered. Here are 5 ways I use tiny notebooks to make big improvements in the bedroom…