Show Notes
In this episode we chat about why we've been missing for a few months, our stationery purchases and how we're always in pursuit of the perfect structure. You can find images, links and other insights that accompany this podcast on our newsletter - https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/ We cover, amongst other topics: 1. A YouTube video comment that led Rob to a new pencil purchase 2. Helen talks about her Hobonichi and how she's still loving it - although struggling to find time for buying stickers 3. Rob talks about keeping a ledger as a life audit 4. Helen talks about her writing habit and how she uses digital and analogue in combination 5. Rob talks about his shipping forecasts and how this was supposed to be the perfect structure 6. Helen goes down a Rabbit Hole of creating the perfect podcast structure And more. Products and links mentioned in this episode: Toad in the hole is a British dish made with sausages and batter - Toad in the Hole Rob's Collins Ledger Our previous episode about Hobonichi Planners Rob buys a rOtring 600 mechanical pencil Helens studying creative writing Martha Brook's advent calendar Business cards as stickers Episode 1 of our previous advent calendar of stationery freaks goodness
More from Stationery Freaks
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.
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.
It’s the last Stationery Freaks episode before Christmas, and after a slightly chaotic month we’re back with a free-form catch-up full of notebook temptation, planning experiments, and advent calendar joy. Helen reviews two very premium stationery advent calendars — Martha Brook(s) and Tom’s Studio — including what you actually get, which one feels more “decorative vs functional,” and the one item she absolutely refuses to touch (again). Rob shares his new structured SmartPlanner time-blocking experiment (and why he’s moved from pen to pencil), an everyday-carry bag confession featuring nine notebooks, and an early idea he’s calling The Wallpaper Method: learning notes on a giant scroll. We also chat about “analog wellbeing,” why January is peak notebook season, end-of-year reflection (hello, Collins ledger), and what we’ll be tackling in the first episode of 2026.