I do a lot of writing, and by writing I mean using a pen to put marks on paper. Sometimes the writing is for brainstorming, sometimes the writing is to diagram out a build I’m wroking on, and lots of time the writing is to put a lecture plan on paper for a mathematics course I teach.

Because I write and give so many lectures each week, I collect paper that would otherwise be thrown in a recycling bin. Paper that is letter-sized and has one blank side. I turn the used side down and write my notes on the blank side. Works great!

To help me keep my notes a little bit neater, I like to put under the paper a sheet of lined paper whose lines are bold enough to see through my recycled sheet of paper.

A long time ago, I made these lined sheets myself. A fine sharpie, a ruler, and a piece of lined paper (e.g., from a legal pad) was all I needed. But it took time to make a single piece of lined paper for this work. A couple years ago I found a web site that allowed you to create your own lined or graph paper, and I’ve turned to this as my go-to source of guiding lined paper:

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/lined/

This site lets you set the line thickness, the line spacing, the line coloring, the background color, and the page orientation. Set those parameters and then click a button to download a PDF of your guide lined paper. Love it!