While I really am a huge fan of productivity apps, organizer software, web 2.0, tablet PC’s and each and every geeky thing on the planet, sometimes you can’t beat good old pen and paper.

There are times when I have to wait an hour in the car and sometimes the best way to pass the time is to take out my little notepad and jot stuff down. I can outline one of my longer posts, make a list of what I want to do that day, or just draw, the possibilities are endless. I probably came op with some of my best ideas like this, the most low-tech way available.

Pen and paper is not just a great method for productivity when you don’t have any other means at your disposal. I find that the freedom offered is far greater than any app can give you anywhere. Even the best ones like Remember The Milk, Todoist, Nozbe can’t give you endless flexibility, a simple pen and paper can.

Let me show some further examples of why I love pen and paper, and the tools and supplies I use to organize myself.

Mindmaps are probably the best example for this. It takes me bout 1 minute to create a mindmap with 20 bubbles on paper, while that same thing takes me at least 5 with Bubble.us for example. The reason is that I get more involved with the look of things. You can make it look so good, that it’s hard to stop yourself. It’s true that dragging and reordering is easier with apps, but I seem to be able to see the big picture more easily with just a simple paper. If I write something down with a pen, it probably also sticks in my mind more than if I just type it.

The pen is also mightier than the webapp when you want to take ad hoc notes, or draw up quick plans. I find it easier to quickly take notes on paper, and then transfer them to an app based solution. When you write, you immediately use a form you understand the most. This means that for that specific purpose, you are most probably creating the best note taking method there is, for you. This is definitely a very bad way to store and organize though, so transferring to an app, or a proper notebook should be the next step.

If you want to be ready for anything, I suggest you put your hands on some office supplies. Most cost very little but can boost your productivity sky high. Here’s some of the stuff I use, if you don’t want to order through Amazon I’m sure you can get these, or similar stuff just around the corner.

Index cards

Index cards are one of the best things you can buy for productivity and personal misc use. Use them for study, for jotting down quick notes, for listing what you have to do today, fold really good paper airplanes (they’re quite thick and fly well), to get dirt out of your keyboard, the uses are truly endless. I think McGuyver could build absolutely anything out of two pieces of index cards.
I use about one 100-pack every two weeks and I’d love to have the multicolored ones from Oxford, but I’ve only fond plain ruled ones here at home. I’ll have to check if Amazon is willing to ship them here, but actually the plain ones do just as well.

Notepads

Here I’m talking about small sized simple note pads. Just a few pieces of paper, about 50 pages will do. This is only for quick note taking, the tear it off and forget about it sort. I use a very small A7 ruled notepad, the trick is not to buy pre-printed to do lists, accomplishment lists, grocery lists and so on, keep it simple.

If you like a bit of fanciness, and leather in everything, take a look at the daily pocket planner from Amazon. Personally, I think just the inside will do for me, the leather just makes it fatter, harder to carry around.

Notebooks

I think the king of notebooks is the Moleskine. Beautiful, nicely crafted with round corners, the Moleskine is highly customizable and comes i a variety of shapes and sizes. There are ruled version, plain versions, city guide versions, quite a lot to look at and try out. I use a very simple large ruled Moleskine which I pimp out with post it notes, those small bookmark post its and some index cards which I glue in. I actually use it as a notebook, but I have the calendar if I need it.

Pens and pencils

There was a time when I used to use mechanical pens exclusively and I still love them, because I think I can write in a more organized fashion with them. Today I just use simply $1 pens casually, but my main one is a Happy Box pen made by Nici, a part of the Wild Friends line. It has a cute alligator and is a cool Hack Your Day green (see picture). I’m not sure you can get one in the US, if you’d really like one drop me a line and I can arrange to send you one. It costs about $15 plus postage costs.

There are a lot of other things to buy and look for, the point is that it should work for you. My Nici pen is a good example of that. I can write with a $1 pen, but I like the cute alligator and the green color and this makes me more at ease, and more productive. Always choose the simplest product, but be sure you like it as well.

Overall I think that it is very easy to organize our stuff and be productive using modern technology available to all, but some times its better, and always will be better to use the things we are most used to. After all, most of us have been using the pen much-much longer than the PC.