Notebooks vs Legal Pads an who's best for what?

[lectraplayer]

While I have used both side and top bound notebooks and legal pads both in multiple varieties and several sizes, I'm wanting to know what everyone typically uses for what and why. I would normally think a legal pad would be best for when you need to make quick notes to give to someone, and notebooks for when I want to keep it all together for myself, both can work in a pinch for brainstorming. I also count steno books as notebooks for my workflow (or lack thereof.) I also gravitate more toward loose leaf in a binder overall as those are more durable overall and often included pen storage, though folios exist for both legal pads and notebooks as well that do the same thing for mobile writing workflows. ...so my question is what paper compilation do you use, and what makes it the best choice for you?

[Mark from Yorkshire]

ISO A4 and A5 refill pads for notes and essays proper notebooks for my journals. I also keep an A4 refill pad for work notes including to do lists and and training etc. after all “legal” pads are a thing (size) we don’t really have in UK it is more of a US centric paper size

[Chris1]

I used A4 paper with punched holes for notes when at university so that I could start a fresh page for each lecture and then organise the notes by subject and/or lecturer later since several subjects would be covered in one day. I could add to my notes as I filed them, either correcting spellings or adding clarifying comments in the margin in a different colour.

 

For work, initially I used the same system as above, but then changed to A4 and later A5 notebooks for meetings. I found that worked better for me and stuck to it for a couple of decades (and a lot of notebooks!)