Problem-Solving Stationery

Have you ever stumbled across the solution to a problem that you weren’t even aware existed? If you wear glasses, you may recall the first time you saw the world with corrected vision. You had grown so used to a blurry state of existence that you were shocked to discover you could see each individual leaf on a tree! Or maybe you’ve experienced the unexpected bliss of a restful night’s sleep on a new mattress after growing accustomed to sleeping on a lumpy old one. We all adapt to petty annoyances in our lives that seem too minor to merit improvement—a wiggly doorknob, a toilet that runs, squeaky brakes—and eventually cease to notice them at all, until one day they’re fixed and we find how big a difference it makes.

Today’s feature is all about stationery that solves exactly this kind of problem. Writing too has its little irritations—pencil stubs, eraser shavings, errant pens—that we’ve learned to work around, unaware that there are solutions out there to make writing smoother and more enjoyable.

Pencil problems

Picture starting out with a fresh pencil: creamy graphite, a pleasant whiff of cedar wood, a plump pink eraser ready to smooth away your errors. Now picture yourself writing a week later, struggling with a stub of a pencil, eraser shavings littering your desk as you torturously scrape the faint memory of an eraser across the page. We’ve got a few suggestions to alleviate these common pencil problems:

• Pencil Extender To extend the length of your pencil stubs so you can use them right up to the end
• Blackwing Replacement Erasers Blackwing pencils have refillable erasers that can be extended as they wear down
• Mono Dust Catch Eraser An eraser that cleans up after itself, picking up shavings as you erase
• Eraser Dust Mini Cleaner Drive this tiny street sweeper across your desk to pick up debris
  
• Kuru Toga Pencil A mechanical pencil that rotates the lead inside so the tip wears down evenly
  
• Wooden Mechanical Sharp Pencil A mechanical pencil with extra-thick lead that won’t snap while you write
  
• Camera Pencil Sharpener This clever sharpener knows when to stop sharpening so you never waste your lead

Pen problems

We all know the pain of unsightly cross-outs, smudged ink, and loose pens disappearing forever inside a bag. Here are a few tools to deal with these issues:

• Pen Holder Clip a pen holder onto your favorite notebook so you’ll always have your pen handy 
  
• FriXion Erasable Gel Pen This gel pen has erasable ink so you don’t need to worry about mistakes
  
• Mini Blotter This rocker blotter soaks up extra ink so your writing won’t smudge

For lefties

We wanted to give a special nod to the left-handed, who are particularly prone to these little irritations as they are forced to make adjustments to a rightie world. Lefties, we see you! Here are a few ideas for making your day a little less onerous:

• Lefty Sharpener This sharpener turns counterclockwise so it’s easier for lefties
• Left-Handed Memo Book A set of memo books with the pages facing left
  
• Baronfig Squire Rollerball Lefties don't often get the pleasure of writing with inky pens like rollerballs, because the wetter ink is prone to smudging. A great exception is the Baronfig Squire rollerball, whose ink dries almost immediately. 

Check out our Problem Solving Stationery collection to see all these handy tools! Want to see more? Read our 2023 update, Problem Solving Stationery, Part 2!

Do you have a favorite writing tool that solves a persnickety problem? Let us know in the comments below!