Paper Doll
Paper Doll Sees the Writing On the Wall: Part Two — Chalking It Up
Pop Quiz!
Do you know the recipe for paper disaster?
It’s a house or office full of sticky notes, torn pages from spiral notebooks and scribbles on the backs of napkins and envelopes, with no rhyme or reason, let alone system, for pulling it all together. Sometimes, we need folders and tickler files and clipboards. Other times, digitally scanning the information is the solution. But these options work best when you need the information at your fingertips, palm-sized, at arm’s length and eyeball height.
But what do you do when you need your ideas and information super-sized?
Last week, we talked about the inventive ways in which whiteboard paint can be used to expand the creative canvasses on which we track messages, mind-map ideas, list To Do items and generally get thoughts out of our heads and onto firmer ground (or firmer walls, actually). A stellar advantage of whiteboards and whiteboard paint is that information that is transitory in nature can be made memorable, accessible and useful…and then can be deleted without wasting paper or even having to bother with recycling.
Paper is superior in many circumstances, but for sharing vital messages or story-boarding a plan for all to see, taking over some wall space can be ideal. However, the corporate-birthed whiteboards are not the only option. We can also go back to basics — to kindergarten, even — to delight in the utility of chalkboards.
CHALKBOARD PAINT
We tend to think of those old, squeaky chalkboards as the province of academia. But chalkboards have come a long way (since we were babies), Baby. Turning your nearest garage, mudroom, or hallway wall into a message center or creative space or giant notepad is as simple as picking up some acrylic chalkboard paint from your nearest Lowe’s or Home Depot, or ordering online.
We tend to think of chalkboards in terms of the standard Grammar School Green or Senior High Slate Grey. Benjamin Moore eschews a vibrant wall, and like the original Model T’s, its Studio Finishes chalkboard paint comes in quarts of any color you want — as long as it’s black.
Quarts of Krylon brush-on paint also come only in black, take 60-minutes to dry to the touch, and 24 hours before they’re ready to use. Krylon 12-ounce cans of spray-on chalkboard paint create durable slate-like finishes that are dry to the touch 15 minutes after application, and fully dry after three hours. It’s safe for use on wood, metal, glass, plaster, ceramic, paper and paper mch. But green and black are your only options.
With standard Rust-Oleum chalkboard paint, which comes in quarts for use with rollers or brushes (and needs three days to dry), and spray paint for direct application (taking just 24 hours to dry), green and black chalkboard surfaces are just the beginning.
Rust-Oleum makes a Chalkboard Tint Base in stirring (no pun intended) colors like Raspberry, Fresco Red, Garnet, Periwinkle, Grape Fizz, Deep Teal, Banner Blue and six others.
Just add the tint to the basic chalkboard paint to jazz up your workspace or make an area of your home a little more colorful. With or without tint, the paint can be applied to metal, wood, masonry, drywall, plaster, glass, concrete, unglazed ceramics, hardboard and just about any fixed surface on which you might like to write or draw.
Modern chalkboard paint provides a panorama of other colorful options. For smaller spaces, like a drawing board just the right size for your pre-schooler, or to create a chalkboard just big enough for desk-side notes-to-self, Plaid Enterprise’s Folk Art line has ten color options in eight-ounce jars – somber shades like Camouflage, Green and Slate Gray, along with peppier Purple, Red and Hot Pink.
Hudson Paint has thirty remarkably bright and vivid chalkboard paint colors,
from Paper Doll‘s favorite (Genius Pink Genius) to a classy (High Society) taupe. These paints come in eight-ounce, quart and gallon containers.
Once you’ve picked your paint, pencil-sketch your measurements and then apply painter’s tape to delineate the borders. Start by painting a small portion of your wall to get a sense of how it works for you. Once it’s dry, keep a bright supply of art chalk in a plastic bucket so that the whole family can leave reminders and alerts: “Tomorrow is trash day!” or “Watch out for broken glass in the kitchen!”. You can even “play restaurant” and put up tonight’s dinner menu. In the office, create mind maps to plan your next big project or track progress on particular goals.
DECALS
Of course, some of you are no more likely to pick up a paintbrush than Paper Doll is. If you’re not a Do-It-Yourselfer, instead of painting a chalkboard, consider peel-and-stick chalkboard decals for designing areas sized to fit your life and work spaces.
Wallies makes 9″ x 12″ vinyl-backed, peel-and-stick, removable and re-positionable chalkboard sheets that are perfect for individual drawings and memos, or for grouping to create erasable calendars. They come in standard Slate Gray,
Blueprint Blue 
and Grape 
, at $16.99 for four sheets or $9.99 for two.
If you prefer a larger canvas for your shining ideas, Wallies carries a 25″ x 28″ Big Chalkboard for $24.99.
And for a little cozier atmosphere, Wallies also carries decorator styles of decals, like this $9.99 Frilly Chalkboard.
Simple Shapes is an other vinyl-backed chalkboard decal option, which, instead of chalk, uses innovative dust-free, smear-proof, wet-wipe, 1mm or 6mm Chalk Ink™ chalkboard ink pens.
For elegant chalkboard calendars, Simple Shapes has a 43″ x 27″ classic gridded set-up
for $64, also available without the vertical memo section, for $35. The calendar portion, which appears to be 30+ separate decals, is actually applied as one piece. For those who prefer to round out their days (pun entirely intended) with a big, visible calendar, Simple Shapes has a similar 32′” x 32″ option for $68.
For a fun wall-sized alternative to a ripped-from-the-notepad piece of paper, there’s a 20″ x 23″ chalkboard wall memo decal.
A WEDDING SEATING CHART MADE IN HEAVEN
One hopes that a marriage will last longer than most chalkboard doodles. Still, Paper Doll wishes to honor the Best In Show strategy for using chalkboarding to organize information. Wedding Coordinator La’Di Events covered a simple piece of birch plywood with chalkboard paint and, using colorful Chalk Ink™ pens, created a fun seating chart for a client’s wedding.
@2010 La’Di Events
PERMANENCE
I’m sure some of you might be worried about what would happen if you organized your thoughts on chalkboards, as discussed today, or the whiteboards we looked at last week. You know how easy it is to pile up papers around you to assuage your fear of losing proof of your epic genius. (It’s why you probably never delete anything from your computer, either.) But just because chalkboards and whiteboards are erasable doesn’t mean all of the information is need be permanently erased.
Recall Paper Doll‘s advice about saving sentimental clutter. I shared the utility of that childhood taunt — Take a picture, it’ll last longer! There’s no reason why you can’t snap a digital shot of your important storyboards, work plans or calendars on a daily or weekly basis. If you’re afraid an over-ambitious cleaning crew (or “helpful” child) will wipe your brilliance off the wall — and off the map — just snap!
Keep the greatness eternally — just skip the paper clutter. End of lesson.
Paper Doll Sees the Writing On the Wall: Part One — Dazzling With Dry-Erase
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than a year since I wrote Morning, Noon and Night: Alternatives To Paper. I’m delighted to find that it’s been one of the most popular posts for people to revisit. So, for the next few posts, we’re going to dig deeper into the paper alternatives that can help us lead more organized lives.
There are times when only paper will do, and there are certainly times when digital alternatives reduce clutter, streamline efforts and provide excellent solutions. And then there are the times (like the drizzly days we discussed last week) when neither is quite right. In particular, when you need to see the whole story writ large, the writing on the wall, as it were, you really need a big idea to see the big picture.
“PEEL. STICK. DONE.”
At-A-Glance WallMates™ (from MeadWestvaco) brings the advantages of dry-erase boards to the world of planning. And, as we know, planning is an essential ingredient in productivity for organizing your time and tasks.
WallMates™ are self-adhesive, re-positionable dry-erase writing surfaces. They’re made of thick .5 mil (0.127 mm) vinyl and backed with removable, medium-tack, pressure-sensitive adhesive. WallMates™ are like the 3M Command-brand hooks we professional organizers love so much. They’re easy to install, require no special tools, and hold firmly, but they can be easily removed and placed elsewhere, with no damage to the clean, hard, dry surfaces to which they are affixed, and no residue is left behind. Because the adhesive portion is thick, it’s less likely to curl or wrinkle.
WallMates™ come in four styles — three planners and one blank writing page:
- Weekly — 24″ x 18″ vertical layout with a weekly (Monday-Sunday) undated format
- Monthly — the undated monthly (Sunday-Saturday) block calendar comes in three horizontally-arrayed sizes: 12″ x 18″, 18″ x 24″ and 24″ x 36″
- Yearly — 18″ x 24″ vertical layout with a 12-month, dated yearly calendar for long-range planning
- Blank Writing Surface — available in three sizes: 12″ x 18″, 18″ x 24″ and 24″ x 36″, positionable horizontally or vertically, as desired.
The company estimates that each WallMate™ can be used approximately 10 times. Each WallMate™ comes with a 3-year self-adhesive reference calendar and a dry-erase marker.
WallMates™ are modular, and can be used paired or in groups to keep track of progress, important notes and dates, and the blank writing pages can be arrayed vertically or horizontally to create useful planning spaces. For example, each monthly calendar page could be flanked by vertically-arrayed medium-sized blank writing pages, or the smaller monthly and blank surfaces, positioned horizontally, next to a vertical weekly page, could provide a tight grouping of big-picture planning options:
WallMates™ can be used on painted drywall, stainless steel, wood, glass and painted metal. Understandably, it’s less suitable for interior brick walls or stucco, as the bumps and voids in the surface area mean uneven surfaces, or fabric-covered walls because lint becomes fused to the adhesive material.
WallMates™ would be great for offices and conference rooms, makeshift classrooms, dorm rooms and even kitchens or hallways, and can be used with any brand or type of dry-erase marker. They can be cut to fit unique spaces, in case your office is that weird cubby under the stairs with an angled ceiling.
WallMates™ can be purchased from Amazon or wherever you buy office supplies, and elements retail from $9-$25.
PAINT THE TOWN
Idea Paint says,
Whether it’s a whiteboard that just doesn’t offer enough room, a classroom budget exceeded by the cost of available resources, or a child’s drawing that needs to expand beyond the boundaries of an 8″ x 11″ piece of construction paper, sometimes, you need to create a bigger canvas.
IdeaPaint can turn any surface into a seamless dry-erase surface, whether for brainstorming in an office:
or trying to set a creative mood:
In work spaces, you begin with a primer coat of BASE, or other recommended primer, and then select one of three IdeaPaint products, each available in kits which contain enough paint to cover 50 square feet of surface. Each kit also includes a roller, stir stick, can opener and Wet Paint sign, and retails for $175.
CREATE is their newest line of easy-to-apply, odorless dry-erase paint which can be applied with a roller or spray applicator. There seems to be a little confusion regarding CREATE’s available colors. The web site says CREATE comes in white, Glance Gray, Show Sand, Natural White, Big Gray — no relation to Big Grey (Meredith) and Little Grey (Lexie) on Grey’s Anatomy, Arena Blue, Fresh Green and Mod Beige. (But let’s be honest: not only has there never been a truly mod beige, mod hasn’t even been mod in a very long time.) However, a recent blog post lists a few other limited-availability colors.
PRO is a super-durable, solvent-based dry-erase coating. It comes with a lifetime warranty and is available in these five, muted, office-appropriate colors.
CRE-8 (yes, one imagines it’s very confusing to explain whether you want CREATE or CRE-8 when ordering by phone) is a high performance water-based dry-erase paint that comes with a 10-year warranty. (CRE-8 came first; CREATE is apparently IdeaPaint 2.0.) It comes in the five calming colors above, as well as Gray, Orange, Light Green and IdeaPaint-Brand Blue.
At home, the new water-based product of choice is the aptly-named HOME paint, available in kits designed for 6, 20 or 40 sq. ft. of coverage. HOME is designed to help create smaller writing/drawing spaces — perfect for kids’ tabletops, playhouse interiors, playroom walls, fridges or doors. HOME is currently available only in white and kits retail for $30, $75 and $140, respectively.
Draw or write on IdeaPaint with standard dry-erase markers, or pick up some cheerily bright, low-odor, ergonomic WRITE markers.
IdeaPaint has environmental advantages, too. Instead of sending reams of paper to the landfills, you can create ideas and designs on one renewable surface. IdeaPaint can even be applied on old, not-so-gently-used white boards to refresh their surfaces.
IdeaPaint also has a smaller carbon footprint than traditional dry-erase boards, whose energy-hogging manufacturing includes baking and curing, whereas IdeaPaint is simply stirred. As it’s lighter than an actual whiteboard, less fuel is needed to ship IdeaPaint to your destination.
IdeaPaint is formaldehyde-free, conforms to all U.S. EPA regulations (including California) and is certified low-emission paint that is both LEED compliant and GREENGUARD Children & School certified. For classroom and home use, it can replace allergy- and asthma-inducting chalk dust particulates.
GIVE ‘EM A WINK
For some people, aesthetics are as important as function — if it’s not pretty, they won’t see it, remember it or do it. Unfortunately, we don’t all have the artistic ingenuity to make a bold statement on our own. Paper Doll is known for Pictionary skills so poor that my freehand cows, cars and maps of the United States are largely indistinguishable. For people like me, there’s a better way.
Unlike IdeaPaint, which paints a color onto a surface to turn it into a dry-erase board, Wink (Walls Love Ink) creates a clear coating over whatever painted or paintable surface you already have. So if you’ve got your own perfectly-blended proprietary shade of pink (and seriously, who doesn’t?) and want to mind-map your big ideas, you can make it all write-on/wipe-off with the application of one clear coat of Wink.
Wink is a low-VOC (volatile organic compound), water-based, environmentally-friendly, odorless product. One $175 kit covers up to 90 square feet and appears pretty easy to apply. However, Wink’s web site says that it should be mixed and “installed” (I think you and I would say applied) only by professional installers. Make of that what you will.
Wink is currently available only in the United States.
MAKE IT POP
WallPops makes dry-erase calendars and removable wall decals for organizing your time and space with color and flair. Their mix-and-match peel-and-stick design elements of dots, stripes and squiggles can be used purely for aesthetic purposes, for offices, nurseries, playrooms and elsewhere:
However, the options for organized messaging and planning really caught Paper Doll‘s design eye. For simple reminders, 13″ re-positionable/removable, write-on/dry-erase dots ($14.99 for a set of three)
and 13″ x 17 3/4″ dry-erase bordered-boards ($14.99/board)
with whimsical names and zippy colors will snazz things up. The dry-erase calendars ($11.99-14.99), also 13″ x 17 3/4″, can be used on their own,
in multiple-month sets ($20.99),
and/or in tandem with the similarly-themed dots and borders, to create colorful, unified themes. And for those who prefer free-style to traditional calendaring, WallPops makes write-on/wipe-off Apps Weekly Dots
and day-of-the-week Holiday Dots (both 14.99 for sets of eight 4″ dots on two 13″ x 13″ adhesive sheets).
All WallPop dry-erase items come with a dry-erase marker.
Will all of these glorious options, how could anyone ever dare to say that organizing is about as much fun as watching paint dry?
Paper Doll Writes Between the Raindrops: Waterproof Notebooks
Paper Doll knows you’re keeping track of a lot of information. Chances are good that you use a digital device for jotting down notes on the run. Digital is dandy…except in a downpour. If it’s raining or snowing, a non-digital alternative is often preferable.
That said, paper isn’t always the best way to deal with the problem, either. Rain. Fog. Snow. Humidity. All of these make it pretty difficult to organize your thoughts without ink bleeding through a mess of soggy papers. And if you’re the sort to send an assignment notebook through the washing machine, or have ever found yourself with a squishy pile of drenched notes after righting an overturned kayak, you know that water and paper are not the best of buddies.
Happily, there’s a nifty third option — one that avoids shorted out digital devices as well as soggy papers. Waterproof notebooks!
WATERPROOF SOLUTIONS FOR WATERLOGGED WRITERS
Do you scoff? Do you wonder who really needs such a thing? Waterproof notebooks are stellar options for:
- Private detectives — especially of the film noir variety, as it’s always drizzling in those stakeout scenes
- Military personnel, police officers, and firefighters
- Poolside novelists — when you get the burst of inspiration in the middle of doing the butterfly, can you really wait until you’ve completely dried off?
- Sailors, boaters, fishermen, and lobstermen (and women, of course) — because you really don’t want to risk someone yelling, “iPad overboard!”
- Shower sages — so you don’t forget those notions that come to you mid-shampoo
- Coaches, scorekeepers, golfers and other athletes — because keeping track of stats during outdoor sporting events often means keeping dry notes, even if you can’t keep a dry eye when your team is losing
- Outdoorsy adventurers, campers, and divers — in other words, people who are the exact opposite of Paper Doll, Paper Mommy and our ilk
- Bird-watchers — who don’t seem so bothered by morning mists or summer showers, but whose disposition sours at the thought of losing data on a Wilson’s Warbler
- Agricultural workers
- Geological surveyors
- Veterinarians and vet students specializing in farm, zoo and other large animals
- Engineers and contractors working on outdoor projects
- Seattle residents and the cast and crew of Portlandia
- All the rest of us who might need to keep track of survival information during hurricanes, floods, and other inclement weather
Luckily, there’s no dearth of alternatives in the waterproof notebook market.
THE OPTIONS
Rite in the Rain makes a big splash as a major player in the field of waterproof writing. The All-Weather Notebooks evoke the sense of a bright yellow rain slicker and puddle-jumping boots.
The pages are particularly heavy-duty, tear-resistant and durable — a little humidity, coffee or sleet won’t do them in. They come in two styles: weatherproof and truly waterproof, and it is advised to use waterproof pens with Rite in the Rain notebooks.
Rite in the Rain weatherproof notebooks all include durable polyethylene covers and come in a wide array of styles, including:
Shirt Pocket Notepad — 3″ x 5″, 50 sheets, top-spiral, with a 1/4″ grid pattern. Also available with a buff or green cover — but isn’t the yellow spiffier?
Hip Pocket Notepad — 4″ x 6″, 50 pages, top spiral, with a 1/4″ grid, and also available with the buff or green covers
Reporter’s Notebook — 4″ x 8″, 50 sheets, 1/4″ ruled
Mini Side Spiral Notebook — 3 1/4″ x 5″, 50 sheets, 1/4″ ruled
Small Side Spiral Notebook — 4 5/8″ x 4″, 32 sheets, ruled or grid pattern
Large Side Spiral Notebook — 8 /12″ x 11″, 42 sheets, ruled or grid pattern, rigid back cover for support
All-Weather Sketch Book — 8 /12″ x 11″, 42 sheets, blank, with a top spiral
Other intriguing specialty notebooks include a Beef Calving Record Book, a Fire Investigation Field Book and a Job Hazard Analysis notebook.
Rite in the Rain Field Books have weatherproof paper and a “fabrikoid” hardbound cover. Each 80 sheet notebook is 7 1/2″ x 4 5/8″ and comes in a wide variety of styles, including universal, field and birder journals, as well as environmental and geology field books, each with its own unique style of ruled lines and grids.
For those who are in over the heads — literally — Rite in the Rain makes DuraRite notebooks for use in extreme weather conditions and even under water. They aren’t as fashion-forward as their bright yellow cohorts, but the DuraRite Shirt Pocket, Hip Pocket and Side Spiral notebooks use an entirely waterproof synthetic paper to ensure the safety of creative and scientific endeavors.
Rite in the Rain’s products retail for $4 to $20. For slightly more, customized versions are available — just choose your page patterns and preferred colors for covers, cover inks, paper and interior text.
Of course, Paper Doll would be a wet blanket if she didn’t provide a few spiffy wet-weather alternatives.
Emergency Zone, whose focus is survival and emergency kits and tools, has an All Weather Memo Pad that comes in a flashy red top-spiral assignment notebook.
Unlike the Rite in the Rain products, for which weatherproof/waterproof pens are suggested, pencils also work fine with the Emergency Zone All-Weather Memo Pad. Retailing from $3 to $7, it is waterproof and suitable for putting in a Grab & Go bag. No information regarding the number of pages or dimensions was available from the company.
Ritchie Navigation’s Wet Notes are completely waterproof 4 1/2″ by 7 1/4″ pocket notebooks with hard yellow plastic covers over the wide white interior side-spiral binding.
The 45-page notebook lies flat when open and comes with a soft lead pencil. The compass company’s products can be found at marine retailers nationwide. Ritchie also makes a 40-page 3″ x 5″ Wet Notes top-spiral notebook with a similar yellow plastic cover.
The Nalgene Waterproof PolyPaper Notebook is a bit of a conundrum. Scientists likely appreciate Nalgene’s 100-sheet Polyolefin waterproof notebooks for their exceptional durability, water- and chemical-resistance and smudge-proof performance under harsh field conditions.
The 4 x 4 gridded paper cannot be used with pencils, but accepts a wide variety of inks, including gels, technical markers and ballpoints. Pages are numbered 1-96, with title and Table of Contents pages at the front. The paper can actually be washed and dried flat, like favorite sweaters!
However, the mystifyingly high price tag of $70.80 per notebook makes one wonder if one has swallowed too much swamp water. Certain that Lab Safety Supply had made a typo, I checked Forestry Suppliers, Inc., only to find their prices merely $2 lower, and Ben Meadow’s forestry suppliers had the same pricing as Lab Safety. Casebound hard-cover Nalgene PolyPaper notebooks are similarly priced at Amazon.
Either I’m missing something vital, or the accounting departments of various university labs are going to erect a monument to Paper Doll once this post goes viral. (Readers, you do intend to make this post go viral, don’t you?)
Wiley’s Waterproof Notebook will do the job, but the water-themed bubbly blue cover may be a little too cute and on-the-nose for some (like our Sam Spade wannabes). It retails for about $7.95 for 64 spiral-bound pages, and a pencil, rather than a waterproof pen, is recommended.
Unfortunately, the exact measurements were not available from the company or their retail outlets. However, if you teach sailing, camping, outdoor biology labs, or other classes where adverse weather is an issue, you can request an evaluation copy to see if it would be suitable for your students’ needs.
INTERNATIONAL WATERS
International readers, you haven’t been forgotten.
The indelicately-named Suck UK is both a product design company and purveyor of odd but enchanting gifts and accessories for the home. I’m particularly a fan of their organizer-friendly products like Peel & Stick postcards and magnetic tea towels.
Suck UK’s Waterproof Notebook has a simple black cover, standard book binding, 100% waterproof paper and is designed to be used with the enclosed graphite pencil.
This notebook goes for 8.95 through the UK site, but Suck UK’s delightful products can also be purchased stateside at various sites, including Kris & Company and Ritz Sisters.
Australian readers can pick up Markrite All-Weather hard-cover 80-sheet notebooks, which are sewn with “rot-proof” thread and bound in durable casemade (i.e., turned edge) PVC covers. The soft-cover books are spiral-bound at the top or side, with polypropylene covers and 50 sheets of waterproof, tear-resistant, high rag content paper.
In addition to standard waterproof notebooks, Markrite also makes diving log books, bird-watching books (printed with detailed precision for tracking observation method, strata, and macro and micro habitat detail) and pocket-sized books.
Stationer and printer Flavell Creative Images of Scotland not only purveys Waterproof Tough Notes in multiple sizes (including A4, A5, and A6), but can also print whatever your business, club, group or family needs for any of a ridiculously extensive set of A-Z damp-or-drowning writing purposes.
With all of these options, here’s hoping your attempts to keep your wet-weather documentation organized will meet with smooth sailing.
Paper Doll Organizing Carnival: Winter 2012 Edition
Welcome to the Winter 2012 edition of the Paper Doll Organizing Carnival! As I mentioned back in September, this periodic series will give us a chance to discuss some of the more quixotic and delightful items related to paper and organizing.
PAPER DOLL’S PAPER DOLLS
In The Sentimental Stuff: A Photo or Portrait Can Sometimes Replace a Thing, the magnificent Jeri Dansky illustrates how one kind of paper — a photographic representation of an item — can preserve an emotional connection while setting the clutter free. In other words, take a picture — it’ll last longer!
Savvy Margaret Lukens knows Why GTD Isn’t Working for You. If your results from the Getting Things Done time management system are flagging, check in with Margaret’s insights and suggestions.
Rebecca Joines Schinsky isn’t a professional organizer, but her How to Say “I Do” to Shared Bookshelves Without Ruining Your Relationship in Book Riot is as masterful as it is funny.
THE BOOK NOOK
Although I love the fact that my Kindle lets me carry the world of Jane Austen around with me, it’s still rare to see me without a few dead trees in tow. As I write this blog post, I’m hankering to get back to the fascinating Selden Edwards’ The Little Book: A Novel.
Spanning from 1897 Vienna coffeehouses to the infamous Altamont concert of 1969, with stops in World War II Germany and at Boston baseball diamonds, this time travel saga has romance, intrigue and political discourse, transfixing me in a way that I’m not sure a digital reading could have achieved. Some stories require the turning of actual pages.
One advantage that digital books have over paper is that you can create your own annotations without harming an actual book. Anyone who has sighed with dismay over an excellent volume ruined with the cramped scribblings of a prior reader knows that writing in a book is just plain villainy.
Reading Notes is an intriguing alternative to defacing your books. They’re perfect for those of us who lend books and want to share our comments and thoughts, and for anyone who likes to keep track of quotations for future reference or ideas for blog posts or wedding toasts.
Reading Notes has a particularly non-21st century feel, and I mean that in the best way. When you acquire a book, just affix an envelope pocket to an interior page or cover of the book. Then, as necessary, dash off pertinent comments (the dates you started and finished the book, page numbers of favorite lines, drafts of a love letter or first chapter of a Great American Novel inspired by the book, etc.). When you’re done, tuck the little notebook into the envelope to review in the future, or share with readers to whom you lend the book, allowing them to share comments as well.
This appears to be a little labor of love for Matthew Latkiewicz, who also writes about wine, creativity, and productivity, and whose side venture is creating comedic “fake audio walking tours of real places.” Matt prices the Reading Notes at $15.95 for a package of three notebooks.
Speaking of booklending, Paper Doll is a sucker for just about any kind of bookplates that ensure safe return of a title to one’s library. As such, I wanted to share these retro personalized library card/sticker sets from Etsy shop Littlebeane Boutique. Each set, at $7.95, includes twelve 2″ x 3.5″ vertical rectanglular stickers on high quality matte paper stock.
STUCK ON YOU
By now, readers have a sense of my initially-strong antipathy for floozies, but I think I’ve shown that I’m not afraid to flip-flop when my perspective has been expanded. In that vein, I do love the Jumbo StickIt Pad from the wacky folks at Vat19.com.
When it’s hard to motivate yourself towards productivity in the dark drear of winter, Dr. Paper Doll prescribes color, and lots of it. Happily, 3M obliges with eight fresh new palettes in the Post-It Color Collection:
In addition to traditional cubes and pads, the products available differ by each collection; for example, Sunwashed Pier includes a variety of Post-It recycled Greener notes, while Electric Glow sports a wide variety of SuperSticky notes and Tropical Breeze has recycled SuperSticky notes. Visit the site to take a quiz to determine your color personality and be sure to click to get a $2 off coupon.
A MEMORABLE BURST OF COLOR
The lovely blog All Things Paper just shared a profile of Julie VonDerVellen‘s amazing garment “replicas” made entirely of paper. VonDerVellen’s artist statement explains that these are not merely paper renderings of outfits, but a mixing of memoir and storytelling — “recollection tailored narratives” — generated from paper craft creations made from recycled cotton clothing. And they are stunning. I still can’t get over the dress associated with the tale of Christine B.’s The Great Prom Saga.
2012 Julie VanDerVellen
THE MAGIC OF WORDS ON PAPER
From Siri to podcasts, it’s true that we can get more information than ever before without reading it. But reading, as opposed to listening or watching, is the only way we can actively consume information and entertainment at our own pace, doubling-back or skipping ahead at our convenience and our leisure. Only when reading do we supply all of the essentials for complete surrender to a story, and ironically, that surrender empowers us. While few would doubt that Colin Firth is the perfect Darcy, I think the powers of our imagination in drawing characters and situations (from the classics to sparkly vampires and girls with dragon tattoos) usually surpass anything that can be fed to us by the media.
Did you know that January has been Braille Literacy Month? When it comes to paper, we tend to think of what we have to do to maintain it — open the mail, pay the bills, file the documents, recycle the refuse, and so on. Especially with the ever-growing digital presence in our lives, we take the benefits of paper for granted. However, I have been fascinated by reading 15 Facts to Share During Braille Literacy Month, and have a newfound appreciation for the independence and creative opportunities paper grants us.
THE FUTURE OF PAPER: REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
In many respects, the digital world is encroaching on what had previously been the province of paper. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three years since Paper Doll asked, May I Have Your Card? and discussed the issue of organizing business cards. I wasn’t entirely a Luddite. It’s not that the post ignored the issue of digitizing, but it certainly presupposed that we were, at least initially, dealing with a business card — a piece of heavy card stock with carefully considered font selections and design choices.
Now, however, the discussion has to include the likelihood of a future with no business cards at all. American Express’ Open Forum raises points on the issue with Is It Time To Finally Ditch Your Paper Business Card?
As a professional organizer, I appreciate the notion of streamlining data, but just as I mourn the loss of album cover art displayed to its full advantage, I know that someday I’ll miss spotting my signature color-scheme card in a fishbowl or feeling the frisson of anticipation when I trade crisp cards with someone and sense that it could be “…the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
As a professional organizer, I’ve guided you towards getting rid of junk mail and digitizing more of your finance-related paper, but what about paper that you might actually want? While business turns away from paper, literature is embracing it in new ways. The literary blog The Rumpus had started an enchanting Letters In The Mail project.
For a $5 monthly subscription price, or $60/year, subscribers will get a weekly mailing (with a stamp and everything!) of innovatively conceived and creatively written letters from novelists, memoirists, comedians, and other literary types, including Dave Eggers, Marc Maron, Emily Gould, Tao Lin and Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott, who started the project to “rekindle the pleasures of paper correspondence,” according to the blog Book Riot.
Organizing literature on loose pieces of paper, instead of digitally or even in bound books, may fly in the face of traditional organizing practices. But I believe that organizing isn’t about stuff. It’s about how we interact with our stuff. As such, I believe that The Rumpus’ Letters in the Mail endeavor can foster some small measure of slowing down, organizing one’s time in such a way as to approach opening the mail as one might approach a fine meal, as opposed to fast food — with intention and an expectation of grace.
In a charmingly old-fashioned manner (which I imagine could turn problematic quickly), some authors will include their return addresses, making it possible for fans to reply. Imagine corresponding with the next Austen or Dickens or Hemingway! Wouldn’t the anticipation and eventual receipt of an actual paper letter be more thrilling than any delivery of an email? More tantalizing than a text or Kindle download?
Speaking of writing, Paper Doll loves hearing from readers. Please share your thoughts on any of the above carnival attractions in the comments section, below. And don’t forget — there’s still time to enter the Paper Doll/ListPlanIt contest!
Paper Doll Shows You Some List Love and Throws A Contest With ListPlanIt
LIST LOVE
It’s a common practice that when you want to be productive, you make a list. A grocery list. A packing list. A to-do list. What’s a recipe except a list of ingredients followed by a list of tasks? What’s an instruction manual except an ordered list of behaviors for achieving the optimum outcome?
List-making has always been popular, even among celebrities whom you might think would have “people” for that. (Paper Doll likes to imagine that “Meet Paper Doll” is on George Clooney’s bucket list.) One of Johnny Cash’s intriguing lists has been making the rounds on the blogs:
Novelist Umberto Eco has written philosophically about The Infinity of Lists and Liza Kurwin has captivated readers with Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Collections of the Smithsonian Museum.
Lists are so central to the concept of organizing our intangibles — like time and tasks — that one of the first mnemonic devices I conceived as a professional organizer was List LOVE: Lists Organize Virtually Everything. Getting everything out of our heads and onto paper (or our digital screens) helps ensure that nothing will fall through the cracks.
The problem with creating our own lists, however, is that while we are experts on our own lives, we don’t always have perfect memories or full control over our creative thoughts. Creating a list ensures that we get everything we’ve thought about into more solid form, but what about things of which we haven’t conceived?
We make lists so we don’t forget anything, but surely we recognize that not every option is available to us on demand.
ENTER: LISTPLANIT!
ListPlanItis the five-year-old brainchild of Jennifer Tankersley. It’s a membership-based site designed for those who live for lists as well as those who need some help in figuring out what goes on which lists to make life easier to lead.
THE LIST OF LISTS
ListPlanIt offers up 700+ lists, browsable by topic — everything from business planning to time management, moving to travel planning, student living to holiday planning. Need a template for a sign-in sheet for your book club? It’s there! Want help putting together a budget for an anniversary party? Look no further. The following grid gives you an idea of the breadth of major categories.
Of course, those are only the main categories. Under Family Matters, there are sub-categories for Health and Safety, Responsibilities, Activities, Family Management, Baby and Pet. From the serious (medication trackers, babysitter instructions and chore charts) to the delightful (tracking visits from the tooth fairy), ListPlanIt anticipates a wide variety of listly needs. ListPlanIt offers elaborate, meticulous lists to help with the myriad tasks of parenting, from packing a hospital bag for labor to potty training to teen responsibility checklists.
Although many of the lists are designed for family use, ListPlanIt knows that we cannot (and do not) live by carpool alone. Under the Business Planning category, there are sub-categories for Management, Social Networking, Marketing and Finance, and under those umbrellas, lists abound to capture every detail of modern business life, from time sheets and blog post planners to mileage logs and budget worksheets.
Some issues bridge the work/life divide, like Time Management, so ListPlanIt offers up customizable daily, weekly and monthly planners, to-do lists and long-term goals charts. And money mavens Suze Orman, Jean Chatzky and Nanette Duffey would certainly be impressed with ListPlanIt’s profusion of Financial Management lists, from budgets and worksheets for funding goals to tax form managers and charitable records.
When ListPlanIt began in 2007, there were 200 lists. By the time Paper Doll gave it a brief review in 2009, that number had more than doubled, and new lists continue to appear. Recent debuts have included lists for attending conferences (budgeting, packing, preparing and scheduling), a craft inventory supply checklist, a comparison shopping list for supplies and many more.
And the lists go on.
MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES
ListPlanIt has three levels of membership, all of which guarantee members one year of full access to all lists (from any computer), without having to put up with pesky ads or pop-ups.
Lists and planning pages are generally in template form, and the type of membership determines how/whether the forms can be manipulated.
Personal/Family Print Memberships grant full access to all lists for $20/year. (For the budget conscious, that amounts to thirty-eight cents per week!) Members may print any of ListPlanIt’s lists as many times as they like. At this level, there are no downloads, and any manipulation, revisions or additions must be done by hand on the printed page.
Personal/Family Download Memberships grant the added ability of downloading forms and typing directly into them before using and/or printing. This option is more eco-friendly and is better for those, like Paper Doll, with dubious handwriting skills. The download membership is $30/year.
Professional Memberships are geared towards professional organizers and productivity professionals. For $50/year, professional organizers can use the lists to help their clients master the art of list-living.
All credit cards are accepted and processed through PayPal. Once you become a member, you’ll be able to log into your account and access your lists. ListPlanIt even has a guarantee of satisfaction.
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT…BUT SATISFACTION BROUGHT IT BACK
Are you curious but not ready to try? To get a feel for what ListPlanIt is all about, you can access a handful of sample lists at the trial page.
LISTING SOME BONUSES
Whether you’re a member or still checking things out, ListPlanIt offers up a hearty spate of resources, including:
- The L.I.S.T., a weekly opt-in email newsletter, filled with tips, sample lists, links and resources for a more organized life
- An articles page, rich with guidance on topics from preparing your child for school to building a better budget
- Jennifer Tankersley’s famous List Mama blog offers up timely and timeless posts to augment your knowledge and share a bit of the list life
- A growing series of video tutorials for maximizing the benefits of various lists and planners
- An online directory of professional organizers who are also ListPlanIt members, for those who would like a little extra guidance in optimizing their use of lists
SUPERSIZING YOUR LISTS
Individual lists serve specific, disparate purposes, but ListPlanIt has taken it a step beyond with a series of ePlanners — type-enabled PDF versions of whole ListPlanIt categories and planning pages. The ePlanners are immediately downloadable, so there’s no waiting, no shipping costs, and no need to print unless you want to. Just type your revisions right into the PDF and save for future use or reference.
Each individual ePlanner is $7, and ListPlanIt offers ePlanners for the following categories:
- Baby
- Birthday
- Club
- Contacts
- Family
- Financial
- Holiday
- Home
- Meals
- Memory
- Moving
- Personal
- Planner
- School Memories
- Student
- Travel
THE CONTEST
Paper Doll has partnered with ListPlanIt for not one — but TWO — giveaways. We’ll be giving away one ListPlanIt print membership (value: $20) and one ePlanner (value: $7). Here’s a list of what you need to know to enter:
1) Tweet and/or Facebook–post about this contest with the hashtags #PaperDoll and #ListPlanIt, and include a link to this post.
2) Use the comment section below to share what kinds of lists you like to make.
3) Tell us which ListPlanIt ePlanner you want the most, and why.
4) Note your Twitter ID or Facebook profile in the body of your submission comment. (Note: OnlineOrganizing’s blog system doesn’t allow clickable links in the comments, so remove the http:// from any link you provide.)
The deadline for submissions is Monday, February 6, 2012 at Noon, EST. Two winners will be chosen randomly and announced in early February.
Good luck, and happy listing!
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