Whenever I get a new notebook, I immediately scribble on the front page before I have a chance to stop myself. There. It's tainted and imperfect. And then I've given myself permission to make messy notes, and jot down just whatever, rather than treating it like some museum-grade archive.

I've been trying binders instead of notebooks (especially the mini-binders from folks like Maruman). Binders allow you to easily remove and add pages (and tabs, dividers, etc). This gives you the satisfaction of making something aesthetically pleasing, while also knowing you can move a 'messy' page somewhere else.

Another solution for this is a notebook with removable pages, you can scribble all you want and if you decide later you don’t need that page in this notebook you can take it out (toss it, store it, or reorganize to a different notebook) and add fresh paper as needed.

It’s also handy to be able to reorder pages if you’re bouncing between purposes, and gives you the option to have a mix of papers if sometimes you want lined and other times dot grid or blank.

I like these https://www.jetpens.com/Lihit-Lab-Pastello-Twist-Ring-Notebo...

I used to keep an engineering notebook open on my desk just for this purpose. The left side was scratchpad, the right side was a more structured notetaking system of things to remember. When the left side got full, I'd start stealing some area on the right. When the right got full, my things to remember were probably out of date so I'd flip to the next side.

I’ve been doing this for a decade. I call it the anti project: it’s whatever I feel like writing on that day. It’s not intended to write a novel (I’ve done that) or make a movie (done that too), or solve any useful problem. The purpose is no purpose besides to get away from the screens and spill some ink.

This is the lazy, pointless-TV-watching of writing. And I’d recommend it, but if I tried to explain why that would defeat the purpose of having no purpose.

I used to have the same problem I would buy fancy moleskins or really nice Japanese grid notebooks, and I always felt like I had to model what I was trying to get out of my head to the medium rather than just focusing on getting an out of my head, but I also started to do the same. I accidentally bought a huge package of wide ruled spiral notebooks. I hate wide ruled and prefer college ruled. So they sat collecting dust for a long time before I finally looked at the pile and figured I'm just gonna start using these and treating them exactly like you do - a drainage ditch. So far so good, the pile is half gone.