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Comment by geoffw8 | Hacker News Reader

I recommend you buy a decent pad and pen, I have a Moleskine one next to me... I'm almost afraid to write on it!

You just called out the single most important hindrance to productivity: being afraid to note something down.

I too went through several Moleskines a few years ago because I didn't want to ruin them with crap pages. It sucked - whenever I did a page that looked "bad", I just moved to a new moleskine.

Sadly, notes are not supposed to be neat, much like your brain isn't. My biggest productivity improvement in recent years (apart from disabling any new email notifications) was the day I stopped being "afraid" to take notes on my notebooks. In the end, they always look awesome and valuable, regardless of how careful I was about making them look neat.

I still have that problem with Moleskines. I bought some cheaper Piccadilly notebooks. That made it easier to mark them up. I also recycle old calendar/planner Moleskines from previous years, so I feel free to just abuse them with anything I feel like writing or drawing.

Moleskines are the Rolex/Montblanc of the notebook world, all brand-name with not much behind it.

That story about Hemingway using a Moleskine is total crap.

Anything using Clairefontaine 90g paper is better, such as Quo Vadis Habana, some Rhodias, Exacompta etc.

Especially if you use a fountain pen.

I think I just like the design. I do also have a Mont Blanc! /me hides

Attention: knowing the brand of your notebook is no longer trendy. Now you have to know the brand of the paper your notebook uses.

and the brand of ink used in offsetting process at the printing house :-)

Hm, you are right. Moleskines are not very good do a fountain pen, but fine for pencil :-)

I never write in pen, strangely. Can't beat the pencil.

Yes, fountain pens. Stuff of legends. Which one do you prefer?

In my current price range, Lamy 2000 and Pilot Capless. Saving up for a Pelikan M1000 and/or Visconti Homo Sapiens.

The newer Moleskine books tend to fall apart easily. This is unfortunate, since they do so much correctly (size of page and color of paper being two big ones for me).

In the search for a replacement, this blog reviews many alternatives, and is generally a good read.

http://blackcover.net/

Following up on this. I ordered a couple of Piccadilly Essential Notebooks (small size) -- one hard cover, one soft cover.

So far so good. I like the paper and the size. The soft cover easily fits in my back pocket. The hard cover fits as well, but of course isn't as comfortable. Time will tell if they hold up to daily use and abuse.

Extra bonus. I'm using the softcover right now, and even page 1 will stay open on its own. This seems very well designed. The link I posted in the parent has a much longer review of these.

I use a pencil, so I can erase and make changes, but a good one. I buy German Faber-Castell pencils at the local art supply store. They are much better than the typical yellow school pencils: better wood, better lead, they sharpen easily and don't need resharpening as often.

What's the advantage, if I may ask?

From my perspective: I've got a $.59 3x5 composition pad that I bought that works wonders for me. What do I get for a higher investment?

Those $.59 3x5 memo pads fall apart after a couple weeks in my back pocket. Moleskines are/were more durable. They seem to be getting worse and worse quality now, so I use a binder clip + a dozen blank white index cards.

I prefer them to a notepad/moleskine now. They're thick enough that i can jot stuff down using my hand as a backing.

Once I don't need a card anymore, I can snap a photo of it with Evernote and shred or toss it in the recycle box. I replace it with a shiny new cheap white index card. Thinning the herd, so to speak.

The thickness of the cards does sound like an appealing draw -- so far, my biggest gripe about the cheap memo pad is that the text can bleed through, plus it can sometimes be a pain in the ass to get in the margins.

Thanks for the tip.

That was another complaint I had about the memopads, bleed through. Index cards end up being cheaper (free in my case, as I raid the office supply room).

I carry these: http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/classic/cahier/cardboard_...

The main reasons are that they're thin and fit in my back pocket easy so it goes everywhere, and since I'm always sitting on it, the paged being sewn in prevent it from falling apart. Composition pads are generally bulkier and glued together or spiral bound which is also pocket-unfriendly. I've got other 3x5 notebooks that are bulkier than the Cahier Journals and I just never take them with me. I'd probably avoid sitting on a binder clip too.

They also have rounded corners which help prevent the pages from catching on my pocket and getting folded/torn/ugly, and it has a nice inner pocket for receipts or other sources of notes. Superfluous, I know, but I like the cream colored paper better than white paper, and the plain cardboard cover develops a nice patina that other stuff generally doesn't.

They're about 3 bucks and only 64 pages each, which is quite steep if you write a lot, but I only go through one maybe every 2 or 3 months, which makes the cost difference negligible to me.

Piccadilly notepads are a cheap alternative to Moleskine. They're available for $3-$4, IIRC, at Borders bookstores.

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