Make your own eco-notebooks.

Like a lot of visual learners, I have to write everything down in order to remember them - I write words, pictures and anything that might help me commit certain kinds of ideas to memory. I began studying for the GRE recently and am thereby forcing myself to revisit the high school math that, despite it's purported importance at the time, seems to have been underutilized in my academic and professional life. I forget most of it completely, while the echoes of some rules of logic seem to be trapped in the folds of my grey-matter and tease me continually by their inaccessible presence. So I take notes. I draw pictures. I procrastinate.

While looking for an excuse not to start an algebra review, it occurred to me I might be better able to use the scrap paper I had been using for notes. So I got out my cutting board and hacked a substantial stack of old lecture notes in two.

I then used the three-hole punch to make a few holes on one side. I found an old pasta box in the recycling and cut that to make a front and back to the book, and I bound all the stuff together with a few hinged metal book rings. I'd advise the use of some heavier cardboard stock, but otherwise it's functional, mostly recycled and took no time at all. Sure beats buying a recycled paper "eco-notebook" with a plastic cover in the stores.