Habits: how I keep my letter log

I am a creature of habit, and when I find one I like and that serves me well, I am pretty good at sticking with it. So I have kept the same letter log habit for many years, and I was reflecting upon it this morning so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I've blogged before about how I keep my letter log, and that has evolved over the years so you can sort of see that evolution in those blog posts, but I explained my method in great detail in my 2011: a year in mail post.

Not much has changed since then: I still log all my mail in a small black Rhodia Webnotebook (I have many volumes of them at this point!), and log all received items using a Pilot Varsity fountain pen refilled with Noodler's Heart of Darkness ink. I love this method. It is an immediate visual differentiation between sent and received, and I can page through and see the received immediately because I always use this blacker-than-black ink in the same pen with generous flow for the task. (I should note that the Pilot Varsity is a disposable fountain pen, not technically made to be easily refillable but it's quite simple to pull it apart and refill it with whatever ink you like - I explain that a bit in this post - and the pens do eventually die or wear out, but it's just a few bucks to replace with a new one, and their quality control is quite high so it feels just like the same pen.) Above you can see my current letter log, with the Pilot Varsity and that lovely very-black Noodler's Heart of Darkness ink. The letter opener just helps to hold the book open for the photo, but it is always close at hand when I'm logging my mail.



I log all sent items in whatever ink I used last for the body of the letter or the postcard, so there is quite a colorful variety there. I don't often use the Noodler's Heart of Darkness for the body of a letter, so it doesn't create any visual confusion in the letter log.

The letters P or L indicate a postcard or a letter, and the numbers indicate how many I've sent that month. It helps me count for my own statistics, which I don't really do much with except note with curiosity how each month varies. I used to post my mail stats on this blog, but it felt too competitive, either with myself or with others, and that is not the point of my enjoyment of mail or this blog, so I discontinued the stat-posting.

I have thought about making a searchable Excel spreadsheet with this information; it would certainly help me find something quickly when I need to look it up. Ultimately, though, I come back to the conclusion that my mail habits are to slow down and get me away from the computer, and every time I've needed to find something in the letter log, I've been able to do so.

So, for now anyway, I'm sticking to my pen and ink habits.

What about you? How do you keep track of your mail?

Back to mail! Or, a return from the doldrums

A big part of me was missing the past few weeks when I was in the mail doldrums (i.e. I wasn't even reading my mail, let alone sending any!). To clarify perhaps from my last post -- it wasn't that I didn't WANT to read my mail, I just didn't have a large enough chunk of time to do it. And I like to sit down and do it properly, with my little routine and all. It took me a little longer than I thought, but I'm now all caught up on my mail reading, postcard registering, etc... all mail logged, read, and enjoyed.

Now I can get back to the business of sending mail again, too - and I just wrote my first letter in three weeks! (Ack.) It felt wonderful. I think I'll go write some more.

2011: a year in mail

I've been wanting to do this for ages now, and the start of a new year seems the perfect time to do it, so hear ye, read ye: I give you one heck of a massive blog post chock full of information on exactly how I keep my correspondence records, complete with monthly and yearly statistics at the end. (Beware, this may be a frightening glimpse into my quirky depths. But isn't that why we all read blogs anyway?)

Every day I record my mail, both incoming and outgoing. I haven't settled on a good name for the books yet; I refer to them as letter journals, mail logs, correspondence records, letter logs, and mailbooks, depending on my mood. I have come to favor the small lined Rhodia Webnotebooks for this task, for a variety of reasons: they're the perfect size for my needs, the paper takes fountain pen ink beautifully, they travel well, I like the weight and color... I could go on and on. Sometimes I think about switching it up, but for now I like this habit. Also, the month/year labels just fit on them so darn nicely.

I just started a new one recently, and I average about 4 months of mail per book. (I recommend Rhodia Webnotebooks from Goulet Pens and Jetpens; they do not endorse or sponsor me in any way, I am just a very satisfied customer of both fine online retailers.)

I record incoming and outgoing mail separately. For incoming, I do all the day's mail (or multiple days, if I've been away or - gasp! - so busy I can't make it to the mailbox) in one sitting, logging it as I read it. All received mail gets recorded with a Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen, refilled with Noodler's Heart of Darkness (black, black, very black and permanent) ink. Outgoing letters get logged as they're written, using the last color ink I used for the letter.



Here's a fair sample page with personal information blurred out. In the received section, I note the sender, location/US state or country (with Postcrossing ID if applicable; other notes, like swaps or misc info like background on the sender, I list on the facing page), postmark date or note illegible, item date or note undated, and postcards get listed first and noted as postcards.

A while back, I started satisfying some of my own curiosity with statistics. Nothing mathematically fancy here, just plain counting. It greatly facilitates my own tallies if I designate letters and postcards numerically by month. I did this all through 2011 for sent items by month, and it made counting the entire year's output exponentially simpler. In 2012 I shall do this for received items as well. That is what the designations before each entry, such as P29 or L14, mean. On this page, P29 is the 29th postcard and L14 is the 14th letter written in November. (One little statistical note, now that my etsy shop is a year old, too: although I write a note with every etsy order, I do not tally those in statistics or log them in my mailbook. They are not personal correspondence.)

So today I went through and counted them all manually. At times like this I wish I kept a fancier spreadsheet; it would be handy or at least interesting, for example, to find out how many things I sent domestically vs to foreign countries (that info is in my written records but I didn't tally it for this), or, perhaps more daunting, exactly how much money I spent on postage in a year. But I really enjoy the ritual of writing in a notebook filled with quality paper, using fountain pens or other fun writing instruments. It's a part of the process that I enjoy, and I would not enjoy keeping a spreadsheet nearly so much.



Enough nattering. Here are the numbers by month. Because I noted letters and postcards separately as I sent them, but not received them, they are broken out thusly as follows:

January 2011
Sent: 39 letters, 48 postcards = 87
Received: 71

February 2011
Sent: 37 letters, 39 postcards = 76
Received: 69

March 2011
Sent: 32 letters, 56 postcards = 88
Received: 74

April 2011
Sent: 39 letters, 56 postcards = 95
Received: 83

May 2011
Sent: 20 letters, 46 postcards = 66
Received: 88

June 2011
Sent: 48 letters, 104 postcards = 152
Received: 120

July 2011
Sent: 36 letters, 83 postcards = 119
Received: 126

August 2011
Sent: 32 letters, 75 postcards = 107
Received: 147

September 2011
Sent: 18 letters, 45 postcards = 63
Received: 92

October 2011
Sent: 12 letters, 50 postcards = 62
Received: 89

November 2011
Sent: 20 letters, 51 postcards = 71
Received: 53

December 2011
Sent: 44 letters, 41 postcards = 85
Received: 69

SENT TOTAL: 377 letters, 694 postcards / 1071 total
RECEIVED TOTAL: 1081



Postcrossing is also great about emailing monthly and yearly stats. I am not including those numbers in the monthly totals, because Postcrossing doesn't count a postcards as "sent" until it is registered, and it could be registered a month or even two after I sent it. But the yearly totals are fun, so I'll note that of the totals listed above, 326 of the sent items and 333 of the received items were Postcrossing postcards.

If you'll permit me some more characters (in an already lengthy post) of reflection, I have to note that I'm fairly cheered that my sent total is only slightly behind my received for the year. I am many months behind in responding to mail I've received, and I dare not even count the numbers in my current "needs response" (NR) pile, but the total of letters and postcards in that daunting NR pile always seems to hover around 100 or so, dating back for those many months. I don't stay on top of it by any means (obviously!), but I try to keep up a steady stream. And an average of nearly 3 mail items sent per day, with at least one of them a letter, is pretty respectable for me and my crazy schedule; it's what I'd hoped I'd achieved, and I'm pleased and proud that I have managed it. You can tell a lot about my schedule by the month's outgoing tallies; I'm a bit surprised, though, because I always feel the busiest in the winter months, but the lowest outgoing months were actually September, October, and May. Those are also busy months for me, and this year was especially skewed since I got very sick in October and did far less mail than usual that month.



Blah, blah, blah. Numbers are fun, but I hope I can maintain some credibility, after spouting all those figures, when I attest that the spirit of my postal journey is far more about quality than quantity. Postcards do tend to be quicker than letters, but for those items contained in an envelope, I may spend 10 minutes on one or I may spend 6 hours. At the end of the day and the end of the year, I am very happy with the year in mail for 2011. I wish I weren't so behind, but I've been behind for two years now and I doubt I'll catch up anytime soon, so I've given up worrying about that too much.

I'll also err on the side of being a little preachy and note that the months of and following my most productive send numbers were also the richest in received numbers. Here you go, folks, numerical proof: to get a letter, send a letter!



This post has become more loquacious than I ever intended, but I guess some of my favorite posts end up that way. Thanks for bearing with me. It's been a great mail year, full of postal joy and fulfillment... what about you? Was 2011 a good mail year for you, too?

The guts of my letter journal

I keep track of all the letters I write in this letter journal. The right side of the page lists letters written to whom and on what stationery, and left side lists one of the pens and inks used (usually the last one used in a letter, as I log the letter just before I seal the envelope). I started listing the pens and inks because over time some of them fade, and I've gone back to old pages and said, "now what ink color was that?"

I don't keep a record of letters I receive, but since I write back to every letter, I can sort of deduce that. I've toyed around with listing letters received on what date as well... might start that up with the next journal.

The outside of the journal is shown here in the bottom left, with my letter opener resting on top of it: