I remember buying my first Moleskine notebook in college. It was my first exposure to "fashionable office supplies", a foreign concept to me growing up. It was a super nice object. In fact it was so nice, I didn't want to use it to just take notes in class, because what a waste. I also didn't want to use it to just scribble personal notes and todo lists in, because what a waste. In the end, I never wrote anything in that notebook at all: what a waste.

Now I tend to view fashionable office supplies as productivity fetish items. It's easy to geek out on that stuff, but does a better notebook make me more productive? Seems to make me less productive, if history is an indicator.

Yeah, I will occasionally find myself reading reviews of immaculately designed mechanical pencils, or minutely engineered Japanese scissors. But I try not to lose sight of the advantages cheap, lousy stuff has too: disposable, easy to replace, low barrier to use. These qualities are also valuable.