I use cheap notebooks

It took me a while to get over the fear of destroying/using up nice things. Like enjoying a nice bottle of liquor, or using up a very nice notebook. Eventually I came across the idea that things are meant to be used, and now I'm much more relaxed about damaging/using up the things I own.

I read once a stellar idea to help get over the fear of starting to draw in a notebook (or an art project, or a new software project) is to just start scribbling and drawing. Intentionally starting with a mess makes it much easier to break the cycle of "This thing I'm doing isn't good enough yet for this".

One notebook brand my wife found, that I love very much, is minimalism art. I like the small, softcovers. They aren't too soft, and hold their shape really well. The paper quality is high.

I also just tried out the new "sidekick notepad" from Cortex. Very expensive (overpriced), but I was happy to support their work.

https://www.minimalismart.com/cn-soft-cover

I used to have a similar hangup, I liked getting expensive notebooks and very rarely used them because I was worried I was “wasting” the page by writing banal stuff on it. I ended up fixing it by complete accident. I ran across yet another nice notebook* and to save on shipping I bought three of them. Later on I happened to be in an office supplies shop with a friend and she saw some pens on the shelf that she remembered as being the best pens she’d ever used*. They didn’t have single pens but the box of 12 wasn’t that expensive so I thought sure, why not, and bought a box. When I got home my notebooks had been delivered. So I was standing there with a whole box of nice pens in one hand and a whole stack of nice notebooks in the other hand, both of which I had bought excess of on a whim, and something just clicked in my brain like “these aren’t scarce resources, these are plentiful”, and I’ve never had an issue since.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to buy cheap notebooks (or cheap pens), do what works for you. But if you want to use nice notebooks and find yourself struggling to do it, you could try buying a bunch to teach yourself they’re not so precious and rare.

*: The notebooks are Code and Quill, the pens are Uniball Vision Elite, I still use both to this day. I have a stack of 10 finished notebooks and I’ve lost or given away God knows how many pens, but I’ve never run out of either.

I thought this would be about laptops. The laptops I use for work and personal stuff cost around $100 and are effectively disposable. They are not great for intense use, but the vast majority of tasks go just fine. And when developing any serious slowdown shows up right away so my work ends up being usable on low end hardware with janky connections. When one of these laptops got stolen recently I just got another one, provisioned it using some scripts, restored my personal data, and that was that. Total loss was a little over a hundred dollars and a half day of work.

I start every day/week/quarter laying out what my objectives/goals are, both tactical and strategic in a notebook. I also have the full set of electronic assets (evernote, statushero/etc..) - but something about the physicality of a notebook and my trusty Pilot G2 07 just grounds my day. I usually go through 2-3 notebooks a year, and I've had five or six different brands until about 10 or so years ago I finally standardized on the Miquelrius A5 Wirebound, 6x8 Graph lined. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009E6WIWY/

Pricing is pretty variable (best deal I've ever done is $10.99) - it goes up to as much as $20 shipping in, so whenever I see a price lower than my lowest one, I just buy another 6. I think I've got about 24 of these stocked in my closet currently that should hopefully take me forward another 12 years.

People go on about pens - and my gateway drug to good pens was the Pilot G2 07 - I spent years and far too much money looking for the "Perfect" pen - until I realized that, ironically, my very first decent pen was my favorite and, wonder of wonders, is also one of the cheapest "good" pens out there. Essentially free. I marvel at how often in life you have to "pay for quality" - Not with the Pilot G2 07.

I almost exclusively (On the rare occasion I use paper, mostly as a prop to look professional or not mess up a low tech ambiance, or some other specific use case) use an A5 6 ring binder.

I especially like how you can print 2 pages on a US Letter, cut it in half, punch it(If you don't have a 6 hole punch, use an existing 6 hole sheet as a stencil and punch the marks), and it's close enough to A5 to work.

It's great for working events to have all my setup info in a binder that isn't a 3 ring full size, which I find unpleasantly bulky,just a bit too big for backpacks, and way excessive for the small amounts of paper notes I usually use.

I also like how they have A5 Ziploc sleeve things I can use for index cards and stuff.

It's such a great format I almost wish I enjoyed handwriting enough to do bullet journaling for all my notes, but I prefer Google Keep for most things, extended notes get tiring trying to write something before I forget it, while being distracted by trying to be legible, it's almost like some kind of rhythm game multitasking challenge!

I'd consider A6 instead but real A6 is hard to find, most of them are actually filofax personal in a weird aspect ratio I'm not sure I'd like.

I've suffered from this dilemma. I've kept an A5 (large?) softcover Moleskine as my main notebook for several years, but I always had this subtle fear about 'committing' something to a perfect-bound notebook, because I knew I wouldn't want to start ripping pages out. On the other hand, a cheap glue-bound or even spiral-bound notepad felt almost TOO disposable - I like to keep archives of notes and sketches in some sort of chronological order.

Recently I found my holy grail which is Muji's system of ring-bound, refillable notebooks and paper refills - https://www.muji.eu/uk/product/cover-for-loose-leaf-paper-a5...

They feel disposable enough (partly the fact they are refillable makes me feel I'm not thinning down the notebook when I rip several pages out at once) but the way you can open the rings and transfer pages means that it's a great system for keeping notes together several years down the line - or even in a more permanent-feeling ring-bound binder. It's an absolute revelation for someone who has obsessed about notebooks!

The best notebooks I have found that meet both constraints of being cheap but good quality so as to not become frustrating are Muji's notebooks. They have several options in size and also styles between blank, lined, and graph lined and looseleaf or notebooks. They even have these tiny passport sized notebooks that I am trying to get into the habit of keeping with me to write down whatever I need in the moment. The paper quality is actually excellent, and their pens are all I use now as well.

https://www.muji.us/collections/notebook

I love legal pads instead of bound notebooks because you can tear off and rearrange pages so they can be with other relevant notes, also the top spiral makes it easy to put in my backpack.

Do yourself a favor though, and time stamp each page down to the minute when you start writing (eg: 20230310T1029).

You can:

- Link between notes. Also enables you to specify the previous or next page in your notes which is useful if they get shuffled.

- Save a stack of relevant notes by making a list of their links on a separate page before filing the notes away chronologically -- you can link to the list itself if you want to link to the group of notes.

- Have a TODO list for a certain date? Link to it from your calendar.

- You can save time by writing only the significant digits (eg: if the note page you're writing on and the page you're linking to share the same year and month, only write the day and time in the link).

- You can add line numbers or paragraph numbers if the situation demands it, and append, say, "LN23," or "¶5" to the timestamp to get specific.

It's a simple system but enables a lot of complex patterns in your note taking system.

Not notebooks but my Dad never let us kids use his guitars because they were too nice. So we never learned guitar. I picked it up later in life and now leave them out for my kids to mess with. Sure, they'll be out of tune and the pick will go missing, but I feel it's more important that they get used as much as possible for everyone. No point in leaving stuff stored away.

I use the cheap Muji ones and the Muji gel pens (which are refillable for under <£1)

https://www.muji.eu/product/recycling-paper-notebook-dark-gr...

https://www.muji.eu/product/gel-ink-ballpoint-pen-0-7mm-1104...

Get through a notepad once a month or so and a refill every 3 months.

I'd love to get into using notebooks more, but I just don't think it's for me. I buy a stack of cheap legal pads (although I get A4 sized) and a box of cheap Bic pens that I think I got about 10 years ago. I tear pages off of the legal pad and staple or join them with a paper clip to keep them organized, but they end up being recycled when they're done. For long term stuff that I want to search, I `notes` directory with some text files and a `:date 2023-03-10` at the top has served me well.

I still really love seeing what people do with their notebooks, I guess I'm just not one of those people though.

All those hours perusing for the perfect notebook on JetPens - it's stupid how much I covet writing instruments. I too use a lot of legal pads, no cover, always flushed with the writing surface, tear off for a new beginning. I always thought, cynically perhaps, that those awesome looking BuJos were made to be Instagramable and not for the use of the writer himself. I will add something in the same philosophical vein as "use cheap notebooks". I was once obsessed with getting the right "planning system" in place for my Get-Things-Done lists, one calendar, one brainstorming notebook, grooming and curation schedule, and the proper icons and markers. Once I accepted that there could be many places for my To-Do list, many places for my priorities-of-the-day, multiple lists in my life, it was easier to get things done. I don't live in one place: the office, the car, my home office, my phone, my workshop - it's fine to duplicate lists and items, the important thing is to have one in front of me when I'm executing on a project. Once I "allowed" myself to have an imperfect planning system, things can get done, instead of me going back for the 5th time tweak the meta-work planning.

I have begun to use cheaper-and-cheaper notebooks. I started with Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, and... they're still great (I still buy on occasion as my "primary notebook").

But for cost-efficiency, I have other notebooks. Just composition books and wire-bound college notebooks for $1 or $2 at grocery stores and/or pharmacies. Just whatever cheap 70-page crap is around.

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My cheap notebooks get one augmentation to make them comparable to the Leuchtturm1917: an automatic numbering machine (https://www.hittmarking.com/products/cosco-automatic-numberi...) to number the pages.

Numbered pages are excellent: they allow you to write "Notes continued on page 45". And have page 46, 47, 48 on a different sub-subject as needed. I think of page-numbering as a "FAT32-like filesystem", with a linked-list connecting notes together. (Ex: when I'm done with a notebook, a single thought may go from page 4, 5, 10, 25, 30. I always work from the book beginning to end, but my natural life causes me to revisit ideas at different times, irregularly).

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I suggest buying pre-numbered notebooks (like Leuchtturm1917) to "learn" how to use page numbers as a note system. Later, if you really like the methodology, buy an automatic numbering machine and just make the page numbers yourself.

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I'd say that maybe 50% of what I write, I revisit later. You want to get into a habit of writing everything that's useful (meaning you're writing down + saving many things that are non-useful). Later, you can make pages that summarize earlier thoughts (ex: page 50 may have a summary of pages 10, 15, 20, 21, 22, and 23, and guide you back to earlier notes).

But this is only effective if the pages were numbered.

When your "cheap notebook" fills up at 70-pages, you can rewrite the important information into the more permanent books, and throw away the cheap notebook. It will be 50% filled with useless crap anyway, so a revision pass is expected and necessary. "Writing to throw away" is a good habit IMO.

I like my Leuchtturms, and I've tried the Muji ones. Muji just has so few pages my Leuchtturms dotted medium size (A5) lasts me about 3-4 months (2.7~ pages a day) it's about 28CAD. Not bad burn rate when you consider even a Netflix subscription. Additionally, it's actually cost effective when you consider that most of my time is spent on thinking and writing down what I thought, therefore "splurging" a bit on myself makes me feel good which ultimately improves the ability to think.

Pens I'm agnostic on brand (although I do like uni-ball). It has to just have enough quality not to leak all the time, and 0.7-0.75 seems to be the sweet spot in terms of comfort, speed and writing accuracy. I do have a bunch of Muji pens (5 different colours) in the .38 range, when I really need to insane diagramming and get the super accuracy. Speed is less of a concern then.

Expensive notebooks have the opposite effect on me. When I pick one up, I appreciate the effort that went into making it and the fact that it was designed counter to a bottom-barrel cheap philosophy. This puts me in a mindset to do higher quality work. Its cost never crosses my mind. Sure, moleskine-like notebooks are more expensive than run-of-the-mill Staples ones, but in absolute values, they don't really cost much.

Get a leather composition book cover for the look/durability, then just use $1 composition books. I’ve had one like this for 10y and works great.

https://www.amazon.com/Leather-Journal-Composition-Notebooks...

I liked this enough to save it almost 5 years ago when Merlin Mann said it on Back To Work #339 (~10 minutes from the end):

On the first page of every notebook, write "The first page is profound." Now you've started writing in it, it's no longer a new notebook, and you're past the "I don't want to start a notebook unless I'm writing something worthwhile" stage. All sorts of other quick reference things you could put on the first page depending on how you use notebooks, e.g. bullet journal rules if you use that.

Possibly also from the same show, things to write in the notebook for every day:

  * What am I thinking about? What's on my mind, one sentence
  * What am I worried about?
  * What one thing do I have to do today?
  * What one thing do I want to do today?
  * (bonus) What am I grateful for or 
    what nice thing can I do for someone today?

For quick notes at my desk or around the house (i.e., TODOs), I use the backside of opened mail envelopes (i.e., mostly junk mail). They are the ultimate in not having to worry about wasting paper, etc.

They are fold for pocket friendly, magnet to fridge, etc. Obviously not for long form (e.g., meetings' notes) but great for random thoughts, etc.

At work, I frequently receive a large amount of paper that I choose to reuse. I hole punch each sheet and place it onto a clipboard, creating a refillable legal pad. When I finish a stack of pages for the day, I archive them in a large three-hole binder. This approach enables me to concentrate on the content of my notes and writing, rather than spending time on making them visually appealing or neat.

Lately I've been using Vela Sciences lab notebooks for my general software engineering usage.

A few years ago I started an experiment to see if inexpensive fountain pens with refillable ink would be both cheaper and have less waste. I got a Pilot Metropolitan and a Lamy Safari for around $20 each. I also bought a Pentel mechanical pencil with a plastic barrel (but everything else metal) for around $15 from an art store.

So far, the experiment has been very successful and I'm still on the original bottle of ink and container of pencil leads. But the downside with the pens is that I need at least a minimum paper quality for the pens (the pencil works with anything, of course) to avoid ink bleeding/blotting. I've tried a few Moleskin notebooks and while the paper is of sufficient quality I don't really like the way they feel when writing (personal preference). The good news is that I can get a pretty good sense just by feeling the paper in person, and the notebooks don't necessarily have to be super expensive. But they're never cheap.

I found my favorite combination of notebook and pen. I really like the paper of the Clairfontaine A5 notebooks. They are cheap and available everywhere here. They paper feel very smooth, not grainy but still give a good friction when writing. Speaking of friction, I love the erasable Frixion pens from pilot. I hardly ever use the eraser but I love the feeling of writing with it. The 'clicker' variant of the pen fits nicely in the spine of the notebook.

I had one huge downside with this pen though, the ink disappears with heat. When I accidentally but my treasured dream journal on a hot radiator I lost over a year of dreams.

Also I always loved writing on the right page (I am right handed) but dreaded having to write on the back of the page on the left, no idea how to hold my hand to make the spine not be in the way. Recently I just flip the notebook upside down so the page is always on the right.

I’ve come to prefer cheap sketchbooks with the spiral binding across the top for my note-taking. Or sometimes a Rhodia wirebound notebook with dot grid paper if I’m feeling fancy. These are both similar to a legal pad as I can have it open and ready for notes at all times. Printed lines seem like unnecessary visual noise to me.

Just wondering, do people write on both sides of the paper? I don't, not because I don't want to, but because of ink bleeds (I know, I should get better pen and paper).

I personally use a stack of printer paper, then punch 3 holes and put them in binders. That way, I can save the ones I want, recycle stuff that I don't want.

This is precisely why I recently settled on using midori md notebooks. They have nice size options, and they are a little bit of a step up from composition notebooks without being so fancy you're afraid to blemish them with ink.

Agree with almost all of it as a heavy user of notebooks.

> "you'd be surprised how many cheap notebooks have decent paper"

Absolutely. I have come across many cheap notebooks that handle F or EF nib fountain pens gracefully.

I also liked writing in expensive notebooks. But it didn't feel like a sustainable habit for the price points.

What I did instead was buying (very) expensive refillable leather notebooks of standard sizes: A4, A5, A6.

And I fill them up with cheap yet very nice refills available locally or in Amazon.

I have freed myself from the dread of writing perfect things and I write in style.

I have done this for many years now.

I am a person who likes the comfort that comes with using things for many years.

Whatever works I guess. I use nice notebooks with sparkly covers fashioned after lavish 18th-century bindings because I feel like a wizard when I write in them, and that's fun. I have a few nice fountain pens I use for this and most of what I write is the most banal shit imaginable, just to-do lists and whatnot with the occasional longer-form entry reflecting on my day, or a dream log or whatever.

If you have a hoard of nice notebooks you'll never use then either get over this fear of having to use them for Serious Meaningful Things, or find a broke friend who does not have this fear and pass them on.

Muji notepads (if you're close to a Muji) have the distinction of being both reasonably priced and nice to look at IMHO. They also have a lovely selection of writing instruments of all types.

I used to purchase notebooks for journaling but had a similar hangup to some other posts on this thread. I just though that it was a hard sell to continually have to shell out a bunch of cash for the sexy notebooks when all the materials for a passable alternative are essentially free if you can tap into the waste of a typical pre-pandemic office space with a comercial printer. (For a while there was a thing that would happen with the network printer where it would suddenly begin to print gibberish, usually only one or two lines per page, uncontrollably for reams and reams of paper. This was the source of my first roll your own notebook pages.)

At some point I heard about the Midori system and then realized that if you had a reusable Traveler's notebook you could print the style of paper that you wanted to use, fold it, and have an A5 sized folio (?) insert that you could staple with a specialized stapler to make the paper inserts.

This is what i have been doing for ~3 years now.

https://papersizes.io/

A5 Travelers Notebook: https://a.co/d/iy32n37

https://print-graph-paper.com

Swing-Arm Swivel Stapler: https://a.co/d/0afXOaW

I use expensive notebooks because I use a fountain pen, and crappy notebooks won't take good ink well.

Same problem here, also the A5 ones are actually quite heavy to carry around.

I find the A6 Leuchtturm ones to be in most practical use right now, they fit into pants pockets (or for me, dress pockets) and they also come in bright yet simple colors which is somewhat inspiring for me. I need relatively long time to fill them so while the price is high they are not a big regular cost factor.

I need something to scribble, macOS notes doesn’t always do it in terms of putting thoughts somewhere and any electronic UI tends to be too distracting.

I use a fair different number types of notebooks depending on the depending on.

I have spiral top ones for notes of me thinking/remembering/wanting to reenforce for later type notepad with a constant pen that go lots of places with me. And graph paper-y notepads/notebooks to help me work on my penmanship and handwriting my thoughts. And rough papered oversized ones that I like to doodle on with sloppy pens.

I think cheap ones can be great. But cheap doesn't need to be everything.

I recently switched from using physical notebooks to entirely digital. I can't see myself ever going back.

I'm lefty, so my hand cramps when I write. I now get to type all day with my lovely Moonlander ZSA keyboard.

I'm forever flipping back and forth pages to try and find notes. Now I search by tags and links, using Obsidian. Every journal entry has a list of links to my notes I made that day, so I know when I wrote everything.

I can put pictures in my notes! I could do that before, but I'd have an awkward bit of paper stuffed in there, and by notebook completion it'd be stuffed with loose paper.

I would always carry a pocket notepad with me. It'd be in bits by the end of the month. Now, I can carry every note I've ever taken on the phone in my pocket.

I always felt a little guilty about all the paper. I'm minimalist by nature. Now, it's all stored on a NAS and Cloud storage. I brought all my stored notes to a place for scanning, then proceeded to dump them. It was so liberating.

I had 2 boxes that I carried from place to place with all my notes. Now they can fit on a thumb drive. I could fit almost everything I own in the back of my Peugeot 207.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's not as effective for memorization, but the benefits have so far vastly outweighed the cons.

Relatable, years after a career change I’m still hoarding nice sketchpads and watercolour paper because anything you do with them has to live up to the material.

There are several Muji stores in my city. I get high quality stationary on the cheap.

I've bought Moleskins and Field Notes, but for some reason, I have a hard time bringing myself to use them. Heck, even a 99-cent composition book from Staples needs a real purpose for me to actually write in one.

Like the author, I prefer legal pads. Mostly for working on. And then, at work we have stacks and stacks of the notepads with a grid printed on them (and the company logo). I love those.

I used cheap notebooks for years but recently switched to an e-ink tablet (supernote) and love it and I feel better about saving a few trees.

I went thru something similar in my MechE bachelors…

Around my sophomore year I finally found green engineering pads. I believe they were TOPS brand. At $4-$5 a piece, they were definitely much more than my k-12 $0.10 on-sale spiral notebooks & stolen printer paper. I filled up dozens of them & love them to this day.

I also bought high(ish) quality laminated folders & further reinforced them with Gorilla tape. This also came after using fairly janky ones most of my life, & not being able to find anything that satisfied me once I went for something new. I still use many I made in 2017.

https://imgur.com/a/e08rdBQ

Got a fair amount of questions about them throughout school.

The Pentel Graphgear 1000’s are an amazing writing tool, as are their Hi-Polymer block erasers. I’ve found nothing able to come close to the Pentel block erasers, and I’m surprised that Staedtler’s have not been completely laughed off the market by this point.

I'm almost the opposite. Cheap notebooks feel crappy. the covers feel crappy, the paper isn't smooth when you write on it. They actively make me want to NOT interact with them.

For me, the Rhodia Webnotebook is a nice "not cheap" notebook with great paper. It handles my heavy flow pens, and pens and pencils both slide across it with a wonderful smooth feel.

Disclaimer: I'm very bad at taking notes and generally at writing (both aspects of it - physical and intelectual).

But having said that... I do love expensive notebooks - at this moment I'm going through moleskine hard cover pocket with dotted pages.

Add decent or even luxury automatic pencil and this elevates it to the whole new level (rotring 800 with retractable end has the ideal length to attache it to moleskine pocket sized notebook with pen loop, this way you can always carry them both and this model of rotring is quite nice to use as writing tool)

I have tried both cheap and quite expensive ones (both pencils and notebooks) and I have found that the quality of my notes goes up with the price and quality. Especially with notebooks its like I subconsciously pay lot more attention to details and general legibility when I know I do not want to spoil this work of art product with my scribbles.

These days, I just carry around about a dozen index cards clipped together along with a cheapo Pilot G3 gel pen. On my desks (home and work) I have a legal pad that I just leave on the desk, but carry into meetings. Digital notes, and photos of index cards go into the Obsidian app.

I absolutely destroy almost every notebook I've tried, including Moleskines and Field Notes.

They last a few weeks, top, before the binding or something is worn to the point it's falling apart. I really liked the waterproof Field Notes for a while, they were durable but super finicky about pens, especially my chosen cheap pen: Pilot G3.

For the Pilot G3 pens, I buy a bulk pack from Costco and don't worry too much about losing them. When my blister pack is running low, I buy another one from Costco. I think I've only bought 2 packs total over 3-4 years. Somehow, I lose cheap pens much less than fancy pens.

It's all super cheap and works well for me.

I used to get hung up over having specific journals for specific thoughts -- one for my projects, one for cool stories, one for whatever else. But eventually I consolidated. I stopped categorizing, I stopped judging, and I just started writing. I guess that's kind of the same blocker as the author, just a different spin.

Had similar struggles as well. Then after few experiments with plain paper (tried A4, B6, A5 - all landscape), I switched to Midori Paper Pad, carrying it in a leather pouch. Using A5 on the go and A4 on my desk. All in landscape orientation, like slides. My output is mostly diagrams/schemas and tables, very little prose.

Advantages so far: high quality per that works with fountain pen. No fear of ruining whole notebook with an ugly note or a drawing. I can carry only sheets that are relevant to the problem I am solving right now. I can lay out the sheets in front of me to get a bigger picture. I can throw away the bad ones. It is easier to scan (using iPhone scan to PDF function).

https://md.midori-japan.co.jp/en/products/mdpaper-pad/

I use the Traveler's company notebook. It's just a leather shell and it allows you to put inserts in. You can mix and match up to three or four different types of inserts. The fact I can always put in new inserts allowed me to feel more comfortable writing whatever in the notebook and not feel afraid of wasting it.

I've suffered from exactly this. Bought an expensive notebook, imagining that it would cause me to "really do this new thing properly" or some such fool thinking. Opposite is true, every time. Making a purchase can be the opposite of putting in effort, rather than an assistive force if one is not careful.

i prefer the moleskines because they don't get ripped or bent when i slip them in and out of my pocket, the ribbon lets me open them to where i'm writing, and they don't fall apart when i get rained on

by the same token, water-soluble fountain pen ink is not an option for me; the best option i've found is 0.3mm mechanical pencils with 2h lead (though i can only find hb these days) but cheap ballpoints are also an acceptable option

i go through about a notebook a year. here's a scan of a couple pages from my notebook last year, which was a hannemühle because moleskines had become unobtainium here in argentina; there's an english translation below the spanish scan

http://canonical.org/~kragen/fragmentos

i made the mistake of buying brügge once, never again

My fave notebook (amazing quality paper) while not crossing over into expensive (for me): https://www.amazon.com/Maruman-Hardcover-Executive-Notebook-...

Pair it with my fave pen: https://www.jetpens.com/Zebra-Sarasa-Clip-Gel-Pen-0.7-mm-Blu...

Every few months I switch from digital notetaking on an iPad, to using notebooks. I think it's rooted in some weird anxiety or something, and I resolve it by saying "fuck it, I'm switching everything".

My current routine:

I use Muse on iPad for thoughts I don't need to share anywhere or worry about searchability of. Project ideas, etc are what go in there.

I use Nebo for handwritten notes because the OCR is better than anything else, and it can actually OCR notes in outline form (I don't know of any other apps that can do that reliably). I take my notes there, convert handwriting to text, then paste it into Notion in a semi-organized way.

When collaborating with my colleagues, I use either Google Suite, or Miro.

I'm sure in a few months I'll switch back to pen and paper, but it is quite nice to only haul around an iPad for a change.

This was a confusing headline. I was looking forward to seeing how he was using cheap computer netbooks.

I started Bullet Journaling a month or so ago...not that fancy arty kind, just the basic layouts. It's working really well for me, because it always feels better having my todos on paper, with occasional electronic reminders. For me, there's no friction between me and writing something down, and the BuJo techniques of page numbering, indexing, etc. work well. Also, my work life and home life are sharply divided, so having a paper notebook to carry between the two is handy.

I just use a composition book and gel pens or Varsity Pilot disposable fountain pen. My only complaint is that the composition book is a little too big to fit comfortably in my work area along with my mouse and ergo keyboard.

What sucks about these cheap 99 cent notebooks are the pages are so thin that they get all folded up and tattered easy, especially if they get tossed in a bag. I don't like how floppy they are if you don't have a table to write on either. stuff like mead cambridge line is a little more expensive, but the paper is a lot thicker per sheet which makes it stand up to abuse, and the cardboard back is substantial. They end up still looking pretty good when I would fill them out even carrying them in a backpack every day. There's probably other cheaper notebooks out there that also have these thicker, more durable sheets.

Nicely summarized in this Poorly Drawn Lines episode https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/nice-notebook/

I don't have any concept of the quality of paper, binding, etc., but I have always been baffled at the slightly more expensive notebooks (like Moleskins) with extremely stiff binding. Those things are difficult to even leaf through to read, let alone to actually write. I really don't get it. An extremely basic spiral bound notebook is vastly more usable. Some more expensive ones do have a very thin spin that can "fold" so that the notebook can lie open relatively flat (I don't know the terminology for any of this stuff), and those are okay too.

I really love having a work journal, and have been keeping one since 2004. Currently my favourite notebook is the Baronfig Vanguard Softcover. I prefer the "Flagship" size, which is just a bit smaller than A5. It's $13 USD for a pack of 3. They're well made, have great paper, offer a dot-grid, and each journal last for about 5-6 weeks of writing.

https://baronfig.com/products/shopvanguard?variant=206468150...

What got me to use nice notebooks with abandon was switching to fountain pens, which require thicker paper not to bleed, and I did that because I'm left-handed and was tired of all the problems that come with that.

Some problems left-handers need to deal with:

    * smearing,
    * awkward hand positions to avoid smearing,
    * needing to press harder to get lines,
    * ripping paper because I'm pushing instead of pulling the pen to write, and
    * pens unscrewing themselves, leading to cracking and thread stripping

I feel the author.

A nice notebook should be filled with nice notes and sketches.

But at the same time it’s a waste to keep nice notes and sketches in a bad notebook.

I’ve settled on Mujis notebooks. I like the A5/b5 format in size and portability. The paper is good enough to keep nice notes on it, but it is cheap enough for just scribbles that go nowhere.

When studying I usually always have a shitty pad near me, where I write down intermediate calculations or other things that are useless the minute after they have been written.

I use printer paper and a folder. I number pages to help order things.

And then there is this. $32+ tax $8 + shipping $12 = $52 for us in US. Thanks, I’ll stick to my Cambridge 9x7 spirals. They last me years. No damage yet, except when I spilled a full cup of coffee on one. Cured me of using erasable ink pens.

https://cottonbureau.com/p/XT9MRF/journal/sidekick-notepad#/...

I believe there is some level of generality here.

For example, I would still relate entirely to this blog post if "notebook" was replaced with "laptop" throughout.

I go a different route with my Todo journal. I make my own paper out of recycled paper I get from junk mail. I cut them to my preferred size and then I do a quick binding with thread from a sewing kit. I then back it with a spine of duck tape (based off another hacker news post). I like making deeply personal objects and doing it this way makes me excited to use them.

I’ve also recently started to make linoleum stamps to mark the cover of each notebook

Here is the one I’m using now https://imgur.com/a/4axd3lC

*EDIT*

For those that are curious, I make paper similar to the process outlined here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xrWrKIVBgo

For my materials it's pretty much what the video shows. I'd recommend starting slowly. Don't try to buy everything all at once. I built up what I had slowly and worked around what I didn't have. Thankfully a lot of these materials you already probably have around the house!

1. Mold and Deckle. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mold+and+deckle&i=arts-crafts&cri...

2. A big sponge. I use the automotive ones https://www.amazon.com/Carrand-40102-Giant-x4-75-Sponge/dp/B...

3. A blender

4. A paper shredder

5. A plastic Tub

6. Wooden clothes pins https://www.amazon.com/Honey-Can-Do-DRY-01376-Clothespins-10...

7. Cheap yarn from my wife's kit to hang the drying paper

8. Some felt to couch (cooch) the paper onto https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YBNZ6WN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

For the stamps I use...

1. These Linoleum blocks https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V5D4JSC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

2. This Linoleum cutter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017D8W5E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

3. Some ink https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017D92TO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

To squeeze out the water from the couched paper I used to use two pieces of wood I'd pinch with some https://www.amazon.com/IRWIN-QUICK-GRIP-1964758-One-Handed-C... (This is something I made for an unrelated pressed flower project)

But now that I've gotten more experience I've moved on to an actual press https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KJZ7VFS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

The duck tape book binding came from this hacker news post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32222201

I suffer the same problem and recently I've found those cheap $3 pocket-sized flip notebooks to be my solution, and so I have 1 in my office, 1 downstairs, 1 in the car and 1 in my coat pocket. I make sure to actually tear out old pages and throw them away so it's always fresh and nothing at all is permanent.

Biggest and best life change I've made in a while! Get some cheap notebooks and throw the pages away as you use them.

My favorite are the reporter style notebooks - skinny and bound at the top. They're like barely a step up from post it's, but do the job for me.

I found "my" brand/style of notebooks a while ago -- Quo Vadis' Habana unlined blanks -- and bought a dozen each of two sizes because you never know whether they'll be available forever, and indeed they no longer are from the small online pen & ink company that I used to like. Beautiful smooth paper for writing on with a fountain pen!

But I still keep cheap legal pads around for rough drawings, &c.

I tend to use legal pads to write initial drafts. I carry a few A5 kraft notebooks in a Lochby Field Journal. Each notebook has a dedicated purpose, and carrying them in the Lochby means I don't destroy the notebooks while they are in my bag. I don't care much about the brand of notebook, since I write almost exclusively with pencils -- I'll grab whatever is available at the office supply store.

The furniture in my house is awesome! It’s from a now-nonexistent Restoration Hardware outlet store. We’d get everything at 60-75% off by waiting until they added to the normal discount. It would be lightly marred if at all. Liberating! Never minded if the kids got to it because hey, it’s already used.

Prefer to buy slightly damaged or store demo musical instruments for the same reason.

I am not making my notes in coherent and chronological order so my notebook would be random stuff of what I was working that day on followed by more random stuff from other days.

I am using cheap notebooks so I can rip pages from them and then throw them away (if I was just thinking on a paper), digitize them or put them into a folder with pages from same project and digitize them when project is closed.

i hate the feel of cheap paper

A small 3-ring binder, plus packets of hole-punched graph paper. Extremely cheap. The beauty of the binder is that it allows for easily rearranging pages, something notebooks do not. Thanks to Lion Kimbro for this advice.

https://users.speakeasy.net/~lion/nb/book.pdf

A big +1 for legal pads. They lay flat, the margins are useful for notes after the fact, and you can find them in dot grid or lined with good quality paper for quite cheap. I absolutely understand the "I don't want to ruin it" anxiety the author speaks of but I've not yet had that problem with my notebooks. Instead, I have it with my laptops haha.

A tip not just for notebooks but for anything (e.g. electrical appliances) if you're buying them for the first time: Buy them cheap. If you use them until they're used up (in the case of notebooks) or broken (in the case of electrical tools), buy a more expensive / higher quality one. If not, you didn't waste too much money on it.

I opted for a Staples ARC notebook [1] with 24lb paper. You'll also need an ARC system paper punch (sold separately).

1- https://www.staples.com/Staples-Arc-Customizable-Leather-Not...

I use Mnemosyne notebooks (https://www.jetpens.com/Maruman-Mnemosyne-Notebooks/ct/765) from JetPens. The paper works great with any pen or pencil and the spiral binding allows them to lay flat.

I tend to favour A5 spiral bound Pukka Pads.

Fairly firmly at the cheap & functional end of the scale, and the right size to stuff in bags etc.

(Link: https://pukkastationery.com/pukka-pads-a5-metallic-jotta-not... )

I took it a step further by starting on sheets of paper, second draft goes into a notebook, then the three draft gets typed on the computer. This really helped me not be afraid to write crap since I will toss the paper if it is bad. And the iterative draft process really forces me to pick out what ideas are best.

I'd like a stock of cheap notebooks, but at least in my country it's not always easy to find them with plain paper. Lined paper is only useful for children learning to write from my pov. Online catalogues here don't always even specify the paper type - childrens' paper is just assumed.

One of my greatest thrift store finds ever was banker boxes full of unused vintage (80s?) grid paper engineering/architectural design notebooks and sealed packages of sheet grid paper including legal paper sized sheets. At my current burn rate they should last me until retirement.

My to-do list is a sticky note stuck backwards to another one (double-thick), with tasks written carefully and crossed out upon completion. The trick, for me, is to have them all X'd out before the note and text disintegrates in my pocket.

I sometimes carry-over tasks, but die a bit each time.

I have two boxes full of random notebooks I got as gifts at various times. Most of them are pretty, strong, nice. Like collectables.

My goto notebooks are walmart brand, anything with hard back, under $4, size A5 or similar, lined pages.

Whenever my book is full, I tear & scan pages as 300dpi color pdfs.

I used to carry a pile of notebooks, but switched to Concepts + Paperwhite on my iPad and use it every day.

I also created a blog with images made during boring middle management meetings which I keep on http://potato.horse

Ha. Years ago, I got a nice mini moleskin and then proceeded to never use it once (I have it somewhere gathering dust). For me, it suddenly felt like the scribblings I was to write down were there for posterity and the thought of this kept me from using it.

I bought a block of Renshape for $80 in design school (a lot of money to me then) and have carried it with me ever since, waiting for the perfect design and also for my modeling skills to be worthy of this goddamn blue monolith.

Wait, I can afford a CNC mill now…

I used to like writing on compositional notebooks under a professional setting. Now as an avid fountain user, I don’t mind paying a little extra $$ for better paper. Better paper won’t snag the nib of a fountain pen and facilitates quicker drying of the ink

I found that if I get the nice wirebound A5 notebooks, I actually use them consistently. The cheap ones annoy me, and I don’t use them, and they end up collecting dust in the closet (along with all the others).

Figure out what habits actually work for you.

I'm the opposite of the author, the nicer the notebook, the more likely I am to use it.

Currently I'm using a Mnemosyne 105 and my primary writing instrument is a Rotring 600 (0.7mm).

When this notebook is filled, I'll probably re-order several more.

One of the reasons I got a reMarkable. Effectively infinite pages. Writing can be copied and pasted or moved around. And I don’t have to worry if I’m wasting paper or ink.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the search feature.

One of the first things I do on a piece of new hardware is to scratch it somewhere less visible so I can use it knowing it's no longer pristine. Tools are tools.

I work in some fairly hostile environments and I was hoping this would be a discussion of "I use commodity laptops instead of Panasonic Toughbooks." :P

I use an iPad mini with a paperlike screen protector. Tap on the screen with the pencil and you can start writing. Notes are taggable with a # and searchable.

I use those yellow legal pads. The majority of what I write is just getting my thoughts in order- I don't revisit much of it.

I will never understand collecting shit just so you never use it.

I use stacks of A4 paper from the printer.

In the scheme of things, those aren't even nice notebooks. Check out anything with Tomoe River paper.

The story here is that what most people do by default is right, and people trying to be better are failing.

I use a spiral ringed 3x5 mini notebook for most stuff. If it needs an entire notebook page I use my phone.

I used to suffer from this. Now I buy a box 500 holed A4 for my printer. I prefer the box.

I miss netbooks. They were small, underpowered, and somehow really neat.

I just try to use the same format. So that I can store them in a nice way.

Yeah I do too, I didn't feel the need to blog about it though.

Fine choice in notebooks but why are you writing in bear??