I bought this $8 Japanese pencil case a couple of years ago and my daughters liked it so much I ended up buying one for each of them. Despite its small size you can pack a lot of art supplies in it, thanks to its book-like middle “page” that holds pens and pencils on one side and small items on the other side. — MF

My daughter, an art student, bought this small hard shell pencil case ($7) to hold a few pens and an eraser. It’s just the right size for a small messenger bag or backpack. I ended up getting one for myself. — MF

I met one of my favorite cartoonists this week, Tom Gauld (his new book: Baking With Kafka ). He draws all of his cartoons with a Pilot Precise V5 Roller Ball Stick Pen. He gave me one of his and I love it. They are $13 for a pack of 12. Tom said the ink does not fade, even after many years. — MF

A good pen that writes reliably in opaque white is hard to find. Black or dark paper will kill an inferior white pen. Ways of failure are legion: skipping, too thin, too transparent, wavering, plugging up, etc. The best white pen is the Signo White Gel from Uni-ball. It puts down a serious, dense, even, opaque line of white immediately and consistently each time. — KK 

My friend Bob Knetzger is a toy inventor. He uses Paper Mate Flair felt-tip pens to sketch out his designs. I bought a dozen for $7 and was reminded why I liked them so much in the 1970s. The lines are smooth and you can vary the line weight by changing the angle between the pen and paper. — MF

Every now and then I try out a new pen but I keep returning to my trusty Pilot G2 Gel pens. Smooth, fine, dark, cheap to lose, and pocketable. YMMV, but they are perfect for me. — KK

Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens come in a 2-pack for less than $5. They look like pens, but instead of a nib they have a brush, which allows you to draw lines of varying widths. They’re a lot of fun to use. — MF

Jacoby Young, who works at an elementary school in Hawaii, created a list on his website called “Less, More, and None,“ which categorizes activities he wants to do less often, more often, or not at all. It’s a great idea. I want to make a similar list for myself. I’m starting with less Twitter, more time outside, and no working on holidays. — MF

I am giving up social media and other distractions for the 2 hour rule, which encourages setting aside two hours each week for purposeful mind-wandering. The author of this article touts this method as used by Einstein and other geniuses. He says that while it helps to focus on specific questions, the biggest benefit comes from the time spent after you’ve run out of things to think about. — CD

Expand this webpage to full-screen, turn up the sound and listen to ocean waves for two minutes. If you click on your mouse, or press the keyboard, the timer starts over. Just enjoy the break. — CD 

Upgrade your pros and cons list by assigning additional value. Rate how important each list item is to you from 1 to 5, and when you’re done add them up to find out which has more points. You might find that even if you listed more items in one column the other might affect your life more. — CD

SortMyList is worth bookmarking if you ever need to sort a list of numbers or names. It’s quicker than copy and pasting into a spreadsheet, which can be finicky sometimes. — CD

I needed an easy way to organize categories in a hierarchical order. It would have been painful to use pen and paper, but thankfully Google led me to MindMeister. The free version was all I needed. There’s a lot of free mind-mapping software out there, but they can be clunky, MindMeister is smooth and intuitive. — CD

Read Ruler is a must-have if you use Pocket. It sorts all the articles you saved to read later by how long it takes to read. Most of my saves take 5-minutes, so I try to knock them out during my work day when I need a mental break. — CD

Whenever I come across an article online that I want to read later, I click the Pocket icon on my browser toolbar. It adds the article to a list so I can read it later on my phone when I have time. Pocket also stores the articles offline and presents them in in a stripped-down, easy-to-read format. I use the free version, but there’s a pro version with additional features for $5 per month. — MF

I picked up this surprisingly inexpensive ($5.50) to-do list notebook last month, and I love it. The Maruman Mnemosyne 197 has ruled, perforated pages with two columns of checkboxes. The 80 sheets are ring bound and the cover is stiff, textured black plastic. The paper holds ink very well. — MF

I like to blame my To-Do List apps if things don’t get done. I get annoyed with reminders, then turn off notifications, and eventually delete. Daily Zen Planner’s super simplistic design is non-threatening and easy to use. I type up tasks and move them to either the Today or Soon screen. — CD 

A while back I reverted to using an analog to-do list because it forces me to be accountable when I have to carry over my tasks to the next day. Then, this YouTube video on How to Bullet Journal entered my life and took my notebook skills to the next level. — CD

My Acrobat Pro maxed out on being able to reduce the size of a PDF. I used Smallpdf to finish the job and it reduced it by half. It’s free to use twice per hour. There’s a lot of other editing features you can you use too. — CD

Proton Mail offers free end-to-end encrypted email in a clean and simple ad-free web interface (there’s also a smartphone app). The company is based in Switzerland, a country that offers strong privacy protection. In addition, the company says it doesn’t have access to the plaintext of your emails, so they couldn’t give it to a third party even if they wanted to. — MF