The Best Back-to-School Stuff on the Strategist

Writer Hannah Morrill found the perfect notebook in the spiral-bound Rollbahn: “Its strong coated-cardboard front won’t crease or crinkle. It can even be sponge-cleaned if, strictly hypothetically, a smoothie bowl were to leak in your bag. (A tight elastic band also ensures the pages remain sealed and protected.) The paper stock is thick enough that felt-tip pens don’t bleed through, but not so luxe to feel precious, like you’re jotting your Time Warner account number onto the Magna Carta.”

Illustrator Joana Avillez hordes these Uni-ball pens: “One of its finest attributes is its waterproofness. And its fadeproofness. It is reliable. It is disposable. It is trustworthy. It creates a line that is buoyant. It is as free as you can possibly let your mind be. It is also roughly two bucks at a stationery store, $16 for a pack of 12 on Amazon.”

Writer Mark Byrne fell in love with the collapsible Midori pen: “Within a couple of weeks, back home in New York, I had new, intense feelings about the pen. I was using it constantly. Within a month, I had found on Amazon, then bought in bulk, what I reasoned was a lifetime’s supply of the pen’s very specific ink cartridges. This was a transformative pen. I needed it to be with me forever.”

Christopher Bonanos swears by this soft-leaded pencil, which was used by Chuck Jones to draw Bugs Bunny: “What makes the Blackwing a life-changer is a little hard to explain, at least until you try one. The lead is extremely soft — that’s why I switch among four of them, because they get dull after half a page. That softness comes with an upside: smoothness. You get nice black marks while barely touching the paper, which means you can write faster.”

According to Maxine Builder, the best stapler is one that actually doesn’t use any staples at all — this Japanese version secures paper with an origami-like hold that’s shockingly secure.

For taking notes, writer Elizabeth Gumport thinks nothing beats white Post-its: “Sketch pads, index cards, stacks of printer paper: I’ve tried them all, and for the most part, they’ve served me well. But none so well as the white Post-it, which I first discovered two years ago and have used nearly every day since. Like my old envelopes, they are the blankest of slates, as their white background never competes with the color of your ink for attention. Whatever you write, that’s what you see: The medium highlights the message by basically effacing itself. I stick reminders around my laptop’s screen, and a daily to-do list next to its track pad.”

The best desk chair (seconded by Strategist senior editor Jason Chen) is this ergonomic chair praised by Alice Gregory.

Flimsy dorm-room chairs aren’t anywhere near comfortable — upgrade them using Maureen O’Connor’s $20 accessory: “Much like the Aeron chair, the Easy Posture sports a bouncy nylon mesh stretched over a light wire frame, and, as opposed to a shapeless pillow, it comfortably curves into the lower back near the base of the spine. It’s a gentle nudge to sit up straight and can be strapped onto the chair of your choice — and, most critically, removed whenever you want.”

For students who need chilled beverages, the unbelievable Zojirushi water bottle kept a vodka-soda ice-cold even after a day at the beach.

The best over-the-door shoe rack for apartment or dorm is the Whitmor: “The rare hanging option that doesn’t involve any pockets. While that means this requires a bit of assembly (though not more than ten minutes; no tools required), the benefit is that it comfortably carries both heels and flats, and it won’t suffocate shoe leather, a material that requires sufficient breathing room to stay fresh.”

Dorms aren’t the best for closet space, so supplement your storage area with a wall ladder that doubles as décor.

A great vaguely Danish lamp that would make a great desk lamp.

Writer Molly Young came with up an ingenious hack — turning this clear fishbowl into a catchall bowl: “Thanks to its combination of utility and weird visual appeal, the fishbowl has remained a constant through many household-redecorating sprees. Its transparency makes it an ideal storage unit. The shape makes it look cool. The portability means that I can easily relocate it when I move my furniture around. And for some reason I get a ton of compliments on it. Why? Who knows! People love a shiny, round, floating object filled with smaller objects, it turns out.”