Home working pleasures – stationery

One of the joys of working from home is being able to use your own choice of paper and pens, and not the boring stuff somebody else doles out of the corporate stationery cupboard. I’ve always loved stationery – odd word – and browsing in shops that sell paper, envelopes, notebooks, diaries and so on.

I’m not quite sure what’s so attractive about it. Perhaps just as new clothes suggest new and exciting lives we could begin to live, blank pages offer the possibility of fearless business opportunities, bold new projects, and imposing order and discipline on previously shambolic habits.

Whatever, it matters a great deal to me that the pen I use feels just right, and writes right! My favourite ever since The BIG Jelly has been the stumpy green biros we gave out to delegates. I like its stubbiness and its cheerful green. The fact the writing proclaiming it to be a BIG Jelly pen wore off months ago bothers me not at all.

As for paper, I love spiral notebooks with a passion. I like the ease with which you can tear out a page to file it away or get rid of if the notes have now all been actioned. I always look for colourful ones and supermarkets are excellent sources, particularly at the start of school terms when there are special offers. If there’s anything better than a spiral notebook, it’s a bargain spiral notebook, and you can see one in this photo of my desk.

Next to it is the brown leather Filofax I’m still using since I bought it as a present to myself after the sale of my cleaning business. Every year at about this time I go hunting for exactly the right kind of diary to hook into it next year. It has to be a week on two pages starting on Monday – the ones starting on Sunday annoy me intensely. Everyone knows the working week starts on Monday. (Unless you’re a vicar, presumably). WH Smith is the best source, as they do their own version, which is much cheaper than the Filofax one and just as good.

Are you still using your BIG Jelly pen? What are your stationery loves and hates, or couldn’t you care less? Or maybe you are so tech-savvy you barely use pen and paper any more…