Then,… I discovered Moleskine. These elegant little notebooks fit in a shirt pocket, open flat, have solid bindings — no spiral wires — and you can get them with grid-ruled pages. The notebook demands a decent writing instrument. I use an Alvin DR03 mechanical pencil with 3mm lead, making it possible to fill the small pages with hundreds of words. I write daily — lists, ideas, meeting notes. Once full, the notebook retires to my bookshelf with a label on the back for easy consultation.

There’s something satisfying about flipping through pages, erasing, annotating, correcting and rereading notes and ideas from prior days ordered by the pages they were written on.

A little Internet searching turned up people who were far more addicted than me — there’s even an addiction scale posted at: http://putthingsoff.com/moleskine-notebooks/. I’m relieved to find that I’m only level 3 on a scale that goes up to 8.

They’re getting easier to find. I’ve seen them in lots of bookstores, but I order mine from the maker at: www.moleskine.com