It's been said that writing is thinking on paper, but what does that actually mean and how does it look in practice?

In this newsletter I'm going to share the time-tested practice of keeping a waste book and how it can benefit your thinking process. I'm also going to share how I use scratch paper and $1 notebooks to clarify my ideas so you can see how thinking on the page looks in practice.

To see just how effective waste books can be, we can look back to one of the greatest minds that ever benefited from one.

In 1664, while visiting his mother's home in Lincolnshire, a young Isaac Newton laid claim to a hefty notebook collecting dust on the shelf.

It's previous owner–Newton's dead step-father Barnabus Smith–had intended to spend a lifetime building a comprehensive commonplace book. Unfortunately, his ambitions proved greater than his will and he left most of the one thousand pages blank or partially filled.

Newton, on the other hand had both the ambition and the energy to fill the tome with ideas. He retitled it the "Waste Book" and spent the next several years filling the tome with calculations, theorems, and ideas that would eventually lead to his theory of gravitation culminating in his life-defining work Principia.

Newton wasn't taking a stab at his overambitious step-father by naming the notebook "Waste Book." A waste book was the place you would write down your first notes and calculations before transferring them over to a formal ledger. It was common practice among bookkeepers and writers of the time to keep one.

The notebook historian Rolan Allen writes, "Newton never stopped working on the Waste Book: he returned to its working again and again, until it started to fall apart...(he) did not just collect references and facts: he engaged with them, he tested them, he used them to spring off in surprising directions. The Waste Book became an extension of his mind, not just his memory."

So what exactly is a waste book?

Techincally, all notebooks are waste books because in the modern era we don't typically turn in or publish handwritten manuscripts. But most people will admit there's a big difference in the way you would treat a premium $65 Hobonichi Cousin vs a $1 Composition notebook.

In fact, knowing that I spent a lot of money on a nice notebook can lead to perfectionism where any mistake seems fatal. And why would I spend so much money on a notebook for the purpose of writing half-formed, sloppy messes of gibberish and absurd nonsense?

But a $1 Composition notebook? Who cares?! I'll quickly ink the page with barely legible thoughts without a care in the world because I know that this is just the sloppy first draft–it will become waste the moment I'm done with the more refined version.

But how do you actually use a waste book to refine and clarify ideas?

In my personal experience I've found that there are three levels to this process of thinking on paper.

Level 1: Vague Notions

This is the shower thought that you don't want to forget so you quickly scribble it onto a piece of nearby paper. It's the loose inkling of something interesting that you might want to revisit later. It's vague, opaque, and slippery when held. In fact, if you don't write it down immediately the thought will return to the vast sea of your mind never to be seen again.

These aren't limited to ideas for writing or creative work. These can be early notions about a life change you want to make, a desire to set new goals, or an idea to create a home cleaning checklist. No idea comes out fully formed so it's important to capture them in whatever shape they come.

Good containers for these are:

• Pocket notebooks
• Scratch paper
• Sticky notes
• Index cards
• Old receipts
• Your notes app of choice

Personally I use a pocket notebook for most of these vague notions as well as little pieces of scratch paper and sticky notes.

Most of these ideas are rubbish. With the clarity that time provides they seem odd and pointless. But a few of them will stick. I'll keep thinking about them as I go about my days. Eventually I'll feel compelled to tease them out a bit.

Level 2: The Waste Book

Before I start writing in my nicer notebooks where I'm worrying about neat handwriting or visual layouts, I get out a classic $1 Composition notebook like the ones I used in grade school. It's here in this humble notebook where most of the real thinking gets done.

Other good candidates are:

• Those cheap notebooks you get at conventions and giveaways.
• Scratch pieces of printer paper.
• Yellow legal pads
• Any affordable notebook you might find in the school supplies section.

I start by asking myself questions and making outlines. I do this fast and furious. My writing is so messy in these notebooks that it can be hard for me to read it at times, but it doesn't matter because by doing this writing I am going through a process of clarifying what's on my mind.

As I go through the process I'll add questions and reminders in the margins, draw things out, and create lists to help me make sense of things. Every addition to the page usually sparks new ideas or connections and the goal is to simply capture all of this thinking at the speed that it's happening.

I like to use a waste book for the initial draft of many different things:

• Newsletter pieces
• YouTube videos
• Goal setting
• New notebook dashboards, layouts, and connections
• Early doodles for a relief print
• Emotional processing

On that last note, a waste book can be a fantastic place to work through any private and potentially embarrassing things going on in your life. These are usually things you never want to reread or have anyone see. Knowing that these thoughts are going onto a page that will end up in the trash can be liberating.

My $1 Composition notebook and whatever other scratch paper I use in this process will eventually end up in the trash unless I'm keeping something for poserterity's sake. That's the point of the waste book: shitty first drafts and the freedom to look ugly in the process.

Level 3: Refined References & Drafts

Once I've gone through this process I'll have a much stronger idea of how I want the final presentation to look if a final version is going to be made.

Sometimes all I needed to do was get something out of my head and be done with it. That's great. I don't need to transfer those thoughts over and rewrite them to be more polished. I'll trash it and move on with my life.

Like I said, the process itself is clarifying and oftentimes all I need to solve a problem.

But more often than not, I'm going through this process to create some sort of final reference in a nicer notebook to come back to again and again.

It's here I think some examples will help.

Example 1: Tech Rules of Use

As you may know, I recently went through a 30-day digital declutter. A key part of that process is reevaluating your relationship with digital devices to use them in ways that support your values.

This was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be and took some time for me to clarify. It started with a vague notion on a card.

After chewing on the idea for a few days I got out the waste book and wrote my thoughts on paper.

I liked the idea of a table and used it as a container to visually display the rules I was formulating. As I was working out the visual display on paper I started to draft the initial ruleset I wanted to put in place for myself.

Once I knew what the rules were going to be and how I wanted to display them visually I created the final reference. Because this is a page I'm going to return to often, I put it in my nice planner, took my time making it legible, and feel like I've truly got a grasp on how I want to approach these tools in my life moving forward.

Example #2: Weekly Spread

At some point I decided I wanted to start weekly planning in my Bullet Journal but I wasn't sure how I wanted it to be layed out. So I started with a quick list of what I wanted it to include and a drawing in my pocket notebook to explore later.

Next I got out my waste book which in this case was printed copies of my grid system templates. Here I started mocking up different ways to display the information that made sense for my needs.

After lots of thinking on these scratch pieces of paper I felt like I finally understood how I wanted my week to be displayed for maximum clarity.

Once I'm at the point where I'm making my weekly spread in my nice planner I already know exactly what I want and how I'm going to display the information I need in a way that makes sense.

It's this process of thinking on paper that's the real magic. Without the messy pages I'd never get to the clarity I desire.

Do I really need to go through all three levels of thinking?

No. If you're one of those people that can visualize how all the pieces fit in your head without outlining and drafting then more power to you. Just know that you're a unicorn.

For the rest of us, there is usually going to be some version of this three-step process going on.

1. Capture
2. Exploration & Expansion
3. Refinement

Even Newton needed close to 1000 pages of his waste book to get to the core of his theory of gravitation. That's hundreds of thousands of words and equations of rough draft material. Principia was the finished product that came out on the other end.

There's no doubt in my mind that the process itself shaped him into the thinker he became.

Do I really need a separate notebook for this?

No. You can do whatever works best for you.

I like to keep my expensive notebooks nice so I can reference them in the future and trash my cheap ones. You could use nice notebooks as a waste book too but I find myself being less precious and open to experimentation when I have a vessel I know is going into the trash once I'm done.

There aren't any hard rules about keeping a waste book. It's intended to be a jumbled mess of madness so you're final drafts can be refined into polished presentations. And even when you do move ideas from the waste book into a more formal ledger or final draft, the thinking never ends. Ideas evolve over time and your refined references that seemed polished at the time may start to seem amateurish with more thinking on the topic. All that means is you've gone past the surface into deeper territory.

The only way to get there is to start small with a vague notion and write.

Prompt:

Find an old planner from a past year with unfilled pages or get a cheap schoolbook to claim as your waste book. Christen it by writing about whatever is on your mind. Try to write fast and filterless. See where it goes.