Whenever I get a new notebook, I immediately scribble on the front page before I have a chance to stop myself. There. It's tainted and imperfect. And then I've given myself permission to make messy notes, and jot down just whatever, rather than treating it like some museum-grade archive.
And then when it’s done you just rip out that first page?
I’ve always had an aversion to people that make neat notes. Anecdotally my experience in high school was that people that made clean notes and spent a lot of time on them always sucked at actual academics- like doing well on tests and intuitive understanding.