I love that Dewey – he’s the guy my inner control freak won’t let me become.

What I was missing was a good portable pen.

See, I use floaty pens at work. I’ve been collecting them for years, and have about 50 of them in a pen wrangler on my desk. These floaty pens are the best for keeping me entertained during long meetings. And they provide me with a “shtick” at the reference desk when people ask to borrow my pen: “Sure, you can borrow my pen. But only if you use it right here. See, I collect floaty pens and this is my special one from the NYPL (Vatican, Toronto, Alcatraz, Grotto of the Redemption, Soukop & Thomas International Balloon and Airship Museum, etc.)” I get everything from funny looks and a chuckle to conversations with people about their travels or their floaty pen collections (I’m looking at YOU, Jon Mark).

But floaty pens are notoriously run-of-the-mill ballpoint pens. And after reading through the 43Folders Google Group for a while, in which the conversation about the Fisher Space Pen went on for 22 messages, I realized I was missing out on something. Later on, I saw SolutionJunkie’s HPDA and knew what it was. The pen on his carabiner!

I tracked down the Cross Pen page, and found the Ion. And lo and behold, did you know that right now, the Liquid Saffron pen was on sale! For half off! I bought it and have been using it ever since. It’s on my keychain, and since I always have my keys on me, I always have a pen at my disposal.

The way the pen writes is new to me, a devoted ballpoint pen user. I’m still getting used to the flow of the ink, but so far, so good. It doesn’t seem to bleed through regular office paper. I haven’t tested it in my Moleskine yet (because I’m too nervous to use it, or something dumb like that), but I’m assuming it will be good in there. And index cards are no problem.

Given that this pen is on sale, I’d recommend it for anyone who wants a good, portable, fine-writing pen.

So my first steps have been to start thinking about what I do and how I do it. And the second step? This is what I accomplished for the first time in ages today:

And empty work inbox! What a thing of glory!