Looking at things sideways

I have often told my students over the years to imagine me holding up a large mirror in front of them. As they look into the mirror from where ever they are sitting in the room, they are all looking at the same thing - but from a different angle.
Roach Smith, a woman who has written several novels, has a novel way of looking at the world from a different angle. She always has a small notebook with her, one that can easily fit in a purse or glove compartment. When she gets an idea for something she wants to write about, she's wise enough to know she won't remember it unless she writes it down. That's a fairly standard practice for most writers.
But here's what makes Smith's approach novel. She says when she wants to describe a landscape, or, to look at the broad picture of something, she turns the notebook sideways. She says the physical act of writing on a wider surface triggers her brain to look at the big picture.
We all know that life has lots of twists and turns. As writers, perhaps the same should be true of our notebooks.