How I moved my monthly review from a Moleskine to HuntingtonMod

I kept a Moleskine large hardcover for eleven years. Twenty-two books, all the same, on a shelf in the corridor. Every one has a scrap of leather to mark the current page and a rubber band that failed six months in. I opened the newest one twelve times a week and closed it twelve times a week. It was a good friend.

In March I moved the monthly review — only the monthly review — into a HuntingtonMod workspace. Not the daily entries. Not the Sunday reflection. Only the once-a-month look-back, the one that used to sit at the last spread of each month and take me a full Sunday afternoon.

Why only the monthly review

Two reasons. The first was practical: the monthly review is the page I reread. I reread it every quarter, every year, and every three years when I try to work out what changed. On paper it was a nightmare — I had to open eleven books, find eleven monthly reviews, spread them on the floor. In a browser tab, all the monthly reviews live in one column, ordered by date. The reading is faster and, more importantly, the rereading actually happens.

The second reason was quiet: the daily journal on paper works. I did not want to move it. There is something about a pen scratching a page in the morning that I do not want to trade for a keyboard, at least not before I have finished the coffee. So the paper book is still on the corner of the desk and the browser tab is open beside it. They coexist.

The setup, in three sentences

I opened a workspace with only the Weekly Review app subscribed, at EUR 4.90 per month. The first month was included. I set a Sunday reminder in the calendar and I did not change anything else.

What migrated

Four months of monthly reviews, typed by hand from the paper book. It took two Sunday mornings — the first was surprisingly emotional (I skimmed my own writing from 2019 and had to close the tab for an hour), the second was mechanical. I did not migrate anything before 2024; the older reviews stay on the shelf and I know where to find them.

What did not migrate

The sketches. The pressed cinema tickets. The margin notes to my future self. The doodle of the mountain hut. The scrap of a train ticket I glued to the January 2023 spread. All of that belongs to the paper book and would have looked silly as a "photograph of a train ticket" file in a workspace bucket in Frankfurt. The paper book is now, quietly, an archive.

The Sunday routine now

Coffee. Open the browser tab. Read the previous three monthly reviews in the column on the right. Write the current one in the panel on the left — three plain questions, freeform answers, forty minutes. Click "Print A5". The printed sheet folds into the paper book at the end of the month, so the archive keeps growing on paper too.

The best thing is not the software. The best thing is that the rereading finally happens. I can see the shape of a year in one scroll. Two obvious patterns showed up in the first month of use, and I did something about both. In eleven years of paper, I never noticed them, because I never had eleven months open on the floor at once.

What I would tell a friend

Keep your paper book. Move only the one thing you want to reread. Set aside two Sunday mornings for the migration. Expect to be moved by your own writing. Fold the printed A5 back into the paper book so nothing is lost.

HuntingtonMod is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Huntington Bancshares Incorporated, Huntington National Bank, or Huntington Investment Company. Moleskine is a trademark of its owner; no affiliation is implied.