In a recent Jetpens purchase I added a 3-pack of Doane Utility notebooks to my cart. I’ve used it for taking notes at my old job and found it great at US letter size. I was able to print the PDF and use it as I wished. Doane paper’s schtick is that it has lines and grid. I like the set up.When I saw that Jetpens was carrying 3-packs of the Utility series of notebooks I decided to get a pack. The 3-pack has one each of orange, blue, and brown covers. The small notebooks measure 3.5×5.5 in size, the same as Field Notes and most pocket sized notebooks. It also features 48 pages and 3 staples binding the pages and covers together.The paper is 60lb in weight and has a nice tooth for use with pencils. It does okay with fountain pens but not great. It really shines with  pencils. I really enjoy the printed colors on the chipboard covers. It lacks the printed page for the owner to add their contact info but the inside of the cover is blank. I simply wrote my pertinent info in a crooked scrawl. While I really enjoy the look of the cover and the paper itself, the lines are too big and the grid is too small for this size notebook. Really it would work if the lines had 2 rows of grid instead of 3. I find that I write much larger and thus use more pages for just about everything. I began my current book only 4 days  ago and I’m halfway through the book.* I’m using this book at twice the rate I usually use a Field Notes. So while I like the books I’m not likely to buy another 3-pack of them in the pocket sized notebooks. I would try them in the larger size.So in short: Great paper, lovely covers, but the ruling is both too large and too small. While I like the look and the paper, I can’t wait to be done with this book. The ruling ruins it for me.

*It bears mentioning that I finished this book in 6 days, the fastest I’ve ever filled up a pocket notebook.