Alright folks, grabbed this Captain Memo Pirate Notebook thing online. Looked fun with all that pirate ship art and weird little icons on the pages. Figured, hey, maybe this time I’ll actually stick with a note-taking system. Spoiler: it worked, kinda, after a bunch of messing around.
The First Try (Absolute Disaster)
So the thing shows up. Feels nice, kinda rough paper like pirate maps smell too, leather-ish? Didn’t matter. Cracked it open Monday morning all pumped. Decided I needed a “system.” Drew a little skull and crossbones for urgent tasks. Drew an anchor for important-but-not-urgent stuff. Some kinda treasure chest symbol for ideas. Thought I was being clever.
By Tuesday lunchtime, absolute chaos. Page looked like a toddler doodled on it after three sodas. Had no idea what half my own scribbles meant. Was that skull meaning “call the dentist” or “fix the leaky sink trap”? Who knows! Totally useless. Felt like throwing the book overboard.
Stumbling Around Like a Landlubber
Almost gave up. But spent Thursday just using it like my old random scraps of paper – grocery lists mostly. “Eggs. Bread. Coffee (lots).” Real deep stuff, you know? Felt kinda stupid. What was the point of the cool pirate theme if I wasn’t using it?
Started flipping through the notebook itself during a boring call. Noticed little things printed on the bottom corners of some pages. A ship icon next to “Projects,” a parrot with “Errands.” Ding ding ding! Maybe that’s it? Maybe the symbols weren’t just decoration?
Actually Trying the Pirate Code
Okay, fresh start Friday. Ignored my “genius” skull system. Used the little icons that came with the darn book. Game changer, seriously.
- See the little compass? Used that for appointments and meetings. Blocked off chunks of time.
- That cool telescope thing? Perfect for long-term goals and project stuff.
- Parrot icon? That became my errands buddy. “Dry cleaning,” “Dog food,” stuck right under the parrot.
- Found an anchor symbol page. Used that for stuff I just needed to hold onto, like reference numbers or good quotes.
- Even used the big pirate ship spread for planning a weekend trip! Marked routes like treasure maps. Silly? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.
Instead of making stuff up, I just matched my crap to their pictures. Simple.
What Worked (Mostly)
Stuck with this pirate code thing for a couple weeks now. Big improvements:
- Finding stuff is SO much easier. See the parrot? Errands. Done. Brain doesn’t melt down.
- Using the pictures actually feels cool. Feels like I’m “tracking treasure” or some nonsense. Makes me more likely to open the book.
- My daily pages finally look somewhat organized. Not perfect, but hey, better than looking like chicken scratch.
- That textured paper? Awesome for doodling little pirate hats on boring notes.
It didn’t magically make me a productivity wizard or anything wild like that. But it gave me just enough structure to make sense of my dumb notes without feeling like homework. The pirate thing isn’t just looks; it actually guided how I put stuff in the book.
Still Ain’t Perfect
Let’s be real. Sometimes I still screw up. Put an errand under the telescope by accident. Takes me a sec to realize why I can’t find my grocery list. Old habits die hard. And if you have super complex projects, this might feel too simple. But for my messy daily brain dump? Yeah, it works. Keeps the ship sailing smooth-ish. End of log!
