This Scattered Brain

Declaring Hobonichi Bankruptcy, discovering Sublime, sticking to my reading plan

This post is generously sponsored by The Sublime, which arrived in my life at exactly the right moment.

February has been a lot.

I opened entirely too many browser tabs — literally AND figuratively. At one point, screechy music started playing and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I feel like the mom in the DayQuil commercial. All I want to do is crawl into bed, but mommies don’t get sick days. We have got to keep things moving.

I had a good cry. Then I switched into consultant mode and asked myself, what can we do to untangle some this?

After running the most rigorous Hobonichi Planner pilot program throughout January, I declared Hobonichi Bankruptcy on January 31st. It requires more attention than I can currently give. And as my friend Nikki says, I don’t want to PLAN. I want to DO.

So I grabbed a slim Stalogy monthly for appointments, big deadlines, and family logistics. Then I turned my work notebook into my Everything Notebook using a very light Bullet Journal flow¹.

I made a February brain dump list with everything I needed to do for everybody (that’s THE LIST I mentioned in my organization post) . I’ve been pulling from that list to create focused weekly work and personal to-do lists. This weekly spread is followed by work notes, reading notes, Substack planning notes, and whatever else needs to live there. I number pages as I go. Anything I might need to reference again gets indexed in the back.

I am worried about many things right now. Losing tasks is not one of them.

I’m working on a couple of writing projects and doing a lot of internet searching. Because work is INSANE right now, I do not have enough time to actually read what I find. I kept leaving browser tabs open. So many tabs, in fact, that my Zoom audio quality started to deteriorate. I called our IT guy for help. When he saw my screen, he said he needed to step out of my office to compose himself.

So embarrassed to have JUST found Joanna Walsh. Why didn’t you tell me!!!

Around the same time, Substack introduced me to Sari Azout, the founder of Sublime.app. She generously gave me premium access and I immediately started organizing my research projects.

If you’re not familiar with it, Sublime is a digital knowledge library. You save your highlights from articles, essays and other online sources into themed collections. There is a browser extension, so you can highlight text directly on a webpage and send it to the right collection without opening another tab. The source link is saved automatically. You can also see related highlights and notes from other people using the platform.

I created a Collection for each of my writing projects and now when I come across something I want to save, I highlight it and send it directly to the appropriate collection. No extra tab, no copy-paste into Notes, no lost links. It feels like a digital commonplace notebook. It’s structured and searchable but also… CALM.

Because of the extension, I don’t even have to open another tab to use it. I feel so taken care of by this tool that I honestly want to cry.

(Yes. Second reference to crying in one post. We are fine.)

Sari has generously offered 20% off using if you use the code AREADINGLIFE if you’d like to try it. If you want to follow me there, I’m here.

And here’s the third cry.

I finished Tove Ditlevsen’s Childhood, Youth, Dependency, aka The Copenhagen Trilogy. I’ll talk about it more at the end of the month, but if you’re in my Neapolitan Quartet fam and craving something similar but not derivative, this is it. I read it as part of my Working Class Writers project inspired by Claire-Louise Bennett, featuring Ditlevsen, Annie Ernaux, and Ann Quin.

When I finished the trilogy, I felt that familiar post–great-book malaise — the same floundering I experienced after finishing Ferrante last summer. But then I remembered why I plan my reading the way I do. I went straight to my Annie Ernaux pile and picked up A Woman’s Story — Ernaux writing about her mother after her death (beautiful and sad). I feel deeply grateful to Past Me for building this reading safety net. Even though I am still a mess, I am a reading mess.

I know that when I share systems and thoughts about reading and organizing one’s life in service to reading, that can create the impression that I have it all figured out. That my life is a blissful collection of moments spent with a book.

The truth is that some weeks are just hard. And even though I work very hard to create small structures that protect my focus and keep me from spiraling completely… sometimes I feel like a collection of coping mechanisms in a trenchcoat.

If you’re in a similar season, I hope something here helps you reclaim a little calm. And as always, please share what’s working for you.

We are all learning.

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🥳 Birthday Month Special

February is my birthday month and I’m turning 45. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to a paid subscription, I’m offering a choose-your-gift birthday option — pick whatever feels right:

• 45% off an annual subscription ($27.50/year)

• $4.50 for 4.5 months (Feb 20–July 20)

Thank you for your support!

1. For the purists, I am not doing any of the “required” spreads. I simply working with the idea of one notebook for all the things and then trying to be thoughtful as I write so that my notes are easier to reference when I come back to them. Also, the INDEX.