Hi all,
Today's post is about losing pens and pencils. And maybe a fix for the problem. But it starts with a confession.
The confession is simple.
I am a pen thief.
I steal them all the time. In fairness, it's not intentional, and I also lose them all the time, so in the grand karmic scale of things, I'm probably net neutral.
I think it just boils down to getting lost in thought and being somewhat fidgety. Even if I'm not writing with the pen, I'll still twirl it back and forth between my fingers, which probably leads to putting it down and then losing it, which leads to not having a pen in hand, which leads to yoinking another one, and the cycle continues.
I even have a term for it, which I call the "pen and pencil index," as in "the pen and pencil index gained two points in heavy afternoon trading today as Sam wondered around the office, losing a black gel ink roller ball, but acquiring two blue Pentels and a black BIC in the afternoon."
Anyway... I've heard people say that treating yourself to a nice pen will lead you to take better care of it, the idea being that if you start to identify as a "nice pen" person, you'll be more responsible.
This is utter bullshit.
Mostly.
I was on a trip to Japan, and figured, in a country known for high quality pens and stationary, I'd treat myself. I won't say I'm a pen connoisseur, but I did find a particular pen / refill combination that I personally liked.
I did my best to take care of it, and held on to it longer than usual, but alas, I put it down (somewhere) and never found it again.
It turns out, I really missed that pen. It was an aluminum hex body from MUJI with a satisfyingly clicky click top, and I used a 0.5mm needlepoint refill sold with a different MUJI pen and I loved the combination. (Especially for writing in my favorite but no longer available notebook, for which I previously wrote about obtaining a 10 year supply.)
Unfortunately, the pen body and the refill were both no longer available from MUJI. Coincidentally, this also aligned with a NY Times article about hoarding products in case they go out of stock. So I turned to Ebay and found various intermediaries who hoarded their own stash of MUJI pens so they could resell them to people like me.
Stocked up, I was determined to put a system in place to keep track of the pens. It's held up well for nearly a year.
In short, I don't use one pen. I now use multiples of my favorite pen. But each one has a dedicated place and a dedicated home. My notebook has a pen loop for it. My bag has a dedicated sleeve. For both my desk and my nightstand, I 3d printed a little pen stand that holds the pen vertically. And if I work from a coffee shop, I'll bring an extra pen stand to place the pen into while it's temporarily removed from my bag.
I think the reason that this is working is two fold. First, the pen never ends up in my pocket, where it is in a prime position to be grabbed and fidgeted with. Second, the pen stand means the pen is clearly and visibly standing up when it's not in use, so it doesn't get hidden under a notebook, or under paper. It's unlikely to roll off the desk, and it sortof serves as a miniature flagpole so it doesn't get left behind.
So it turns out, I'm not a nice pen person. I'm just an overly elaborate pen management system person. So far, it's working.
Best regards,
Sam Feller
aka THE Awkward Engineer