Editorial desk · Practical notes

Give your journal a simple weekly index

Leave two pages at the front for an index and number pages as you use them. At the end of a week, write one line identifying a note you may want to find again, followed by its page number.

Use descriptions that mean something to you: a book passage, a project question or a useful conversation. You do not need to index every entry, and a blank week does not require catching up.

Review the index when the notebook fills. Copy only the information you still need into the next notebook and label the old volume with its date range. Store private journals where their contents will stay private.