[throwawayboise]

I like pen and paper for organizing thoughts but find that the expensive notebooks and fancy fountain pens and elaborate formatting "systems" just interfere with the core value of pen and paper notes: there are no rules.

I have a stack of discarded printer paper on my desk. Rough drafts I've printed to proofread, that sort of thing. I make notes and doodles on the back side of these pages, using whatever pen or pencil is handy. If I decide they are worth keeping, I can use a three-hole punch and put them in a binder. Mostly they end up getting shredded and recycled.

There are cases where using a text editor makes more sense. Working through the installation of a piece of software, for example. Much easier to copy/paste from the terminal (or just use 'script' to record it and edit later) than to transcribe shell commands onto paper.