[Image: Sophie Lucido Johnson]

There are, if we’re being honest, very few moments in our lives in which we gaslight ourselves more than the moment we purchase a new notepad. It promises so much — that blissful combination of fresh, blank pages, the crisp, clean smell of unmarked paper, and the seductive thought that this one might finally be the notepad to change our lives. It’s a lie, of course, but one we continue to tell ourselves with alarming regularity.

The process begins innocently enough. You’re at the stationery store, perhaps in the throes of a mid-afternoon lull, when you notice it: the pristine, unspoiled notepad. Maybe it’s leather-bound, maybe it’s spiral-bound, or maybe it’s just an unassuming A4 pad. But whatever it is, it gleams with possibilities. The shelves, previously filled with an inconsequential array of pens, post-its, and highlighters, now seem to fall away as your gaze locks onto the holy grail of productivity.

You pick it up. You flip through the pages. You hold it at arm’s length to admire the symmetry of its design. You let the thought slip into your head that, with this notepad, you will finally capture all those ideas that have thus far slipped through your fingers. The great novel, the ground-breaking business plan, the perfectly organized to-do list — all will flow effortlessly from your pen to its pages.

And that’s when it happens. The vision of your future self — the one who writes with purpose, who has goals, who does not waste a single moment — materializes. You can practically hear the sound of the pen scratching across the paper, transforming your scattered thoughts into tangible, actionable outcomes.

But here’s the thing. You won’t.

Oh, you’ll write a couple of lines, maybe a grocery list, perhaps a half-hearted attempt at sketching out that business idea. You’ll embellish the two pages you’ve actually used with the most complex doodles, turning the words “To do” into something that could be the envy of the most disciplined monastic scribe, hoping they’ll distract the eye from the empty pages.
But soon enough, the blank pages will start to mock you. The notepad, once filled with potential, will reveal itself for what it truly is: a metaphor for your unfulfilled promises. It will sit there, untouched, as the days stretch into weeks, and you’ll console yourself with the thought that you’ll get around to it soon. After all, you’ve got a new notepad.

The irony is not lost on you. You know that buying a new notepad is not the solution to your creative block or your inability to get things done. In fact, you know that the notepad is, in itself, part of the problem. It’s the perfect distraction — the shiny new thing that promises you can be the person you want to be without actually doing anything about it.

There’s a profound comfort in this, of course. The illusion of productivity is far less taxing than actual productivity. It allows you to feel like you’re in control, that you have your life together, when in reality, you’re just another person wandering the aisles of a stationery shop, in search of salvation through a small, overpriced stack of paper.

And so the cycle continues. New notepad, same old procrastination. But what else is there to do? For the briefest of moments, that crisp, empty page offers a chance for reinvention. It’s the only place where failure hasn’t occurred. At least, not yet.