I seem to have a surfeit of paper. Lined paper, plain paper, dot grid paper.

Some of it is in loose sheafs, some folded into the origami of envelopes. And plenty in the form of notebooks big and small.

I buy all of this paper and these notebooks (and pens and pencils to use on their untouched landscapes) to express my thoughts. But instead I seem locked into a volume of use of work notebooks, where I’m hamstrung by habit and repetition: the same pen on the same brand, colour and size of notebook. And everything else remains pristine and intact, wrapped neatly in cellophane daring me to get it wrong.

Anyone else, and I’d advise them to throw open the doors of variety, to unshackle themselves from these norms. Though, as always, advice directed towards me falls on deaf ears.

And so – with the exception of the notes taken in meetings and at my desk (to which, let’s face it, I refer infrequently at best) – I seem to have locked myself into the paralysis of perfection. Of needing things to be just so before things can just flow.

Which is ridiculous! Whoever winds themselves into a constipation of uptightness in order to hang loose, to let the good times roll and words flow? Me. That’s who. The king of being buttoned up. I mean, I don;t even use this site more than a couple of times a decade….

I wonder, whether I need to wean myself: perhaps some sort of new rule of fewer rules to do, rather than to fail to think about doing and then regret my inaction before buying more disappointment.

Will it work? Maybe. I’ll have to follow some advice though. Anyone got any suggestions?