That is what I mostly use. That and post it notes. The notes are nice for 'im done with it toss it'. The pads for making lists of items. I used to have hundreds of old notebooks full of stuff. After one move I went thru them and realized none of it really mattered. Nice paper, very expensive pens/mechanical pencils. I just chucked it all. El cheapo notebook and pens. Switched exclusively to a 'todo' style system for paper. I found all of that info I was writing down, was fairly useless and out of context meaningless. Unless I meticulously went back and cataloged it. Even then it was not really worth it. If I come across an old legal pad with stuff I flip thru it quick and decide 'do I need to keep it'. Usually not and I garbage it.
I used to love getting that sort of thing. Then disassembling and figuring out exactly how they worked. Knew all the different types of lead to get for them. All the different harnesses and sizes and why to pick one over the other. But after awhile I realized I was obsessing over the tools and not actually doing anything with them. My 'choice' these days is a el-cheap bic-biro. Not totally junk but not very expensive if someone walks off with it. Played around for awhile with the gel ink style disposables. They have a nice clean line usually.
