Making Progress in a Stationery Fashion

I have a serious weakness for stationery. I don't know why, but I do get a kick out of buying new stationery. Perhaps it's the sense of promise and potential that I get from clean blank pages and nice new pens. Perhaps it's nostalgia for the optimism of a new academic year (yes, I did used to look forward to September - I make no pretence at being anything other than a geek).

Anyway, I've come to the reluctant conclusion that it's all very well doing literature searches and printing out loads of papers (double sided, I hasten to add). But unless I sit down and read them, and actually absorb some of their content, this thesis thing isn't going to happen.

So I figured that some new stationery might inspire me to get going. I am, however, feeling increasingly guilty about unnecessary consumption as I become more ecologically aware. I settled, therefore, for a happy medium. I bought an Eco notebook from Paperchase (recycled plastic cover and paper), a ruler from Remarkable Pencils Ltd., a pen from Pilot's Be Green range and, for good measure, a card for a friend from The Carte Postale's range of environmentally friendly cards.

So I get to be excited about stationery, whilst simultaneously having less of a negative impact than if I hadn't given it any thought. Hopefully soon products like these will be so widely available that people who don't give these things any thought can buy them too.

(Picture credit: 'I used to be a car tyre...' pencil case Originally uploaded by shampooplanet)