The Circa system. Its been around for awhile and I’ve even made a foray into the “disc world” myself in the past but the Circa system had sort of fallen off my radar as of late so I thought I’d reconsider it.
If you’ve not familiar with it, its a series of plastic discs and a customized die cut or hole punch that creates divots in the edge of the paper to accommodate adding or removing sheets easily to the disc binding system. While Levenger’s Circa system is the most well-known, there are other options available like the Rollabind and the Arc system from Staples. They all look interchangeable which is appealing if you want to customize a system to your specific tastes and budget.
The Circa system has relationships with popular notebook companies like Rhodia and Behance while Staples’ Arc system beats out in the pricing and convenience arena. Pre-printed and punched sheets are available for meeting notes, recipes, agendas and planners and many other task specific activities. All three bands offer a range of paper but the real appeal to me is being able to select my own paper and then use the custom hole punch to fit it into a notebook. While I like Rhodia paper, I’d prefer dot grid or blank sheets rather than the customized meeting notes style available at Leveneger. Because of the way the disc system works, smaller sheets of paper can be inserted into a larger system and they stay in place. So, other pieces of paper, from 3x5s to photocopies, can be punched and inserted into the right spot in your notebook.
Lots of cover options are available from simple poly-plastic to leather zip cases. And of course, there are some unique discs that make the possibility of sitting in a long meeting, a little more tolerable.
Does anyone use a Circa-style disc notebook? How do you like it?
which is a smooth blue-black despite the squidgy writing (I had an errant hair caught in my pen tines). Once I got my pen issues sorted out, it seems to be a silky and dark blue-black. Next up is the 
