Stick to It

Pixabay

I love Post-it Notes. They stick without being sticky. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Perhaps best of all, their bright colors are a great match for my I need to see it personal style, not only calling attention to the things I need to do, but standing out amid a sea of nondescript to-do notes on a desktop or table.

Last April, I wrote a post for CatholicMom.com about Postit.com, a site by the makers of Post-it Notes, filled with great ideas for ways to use them. I'm not even going to try to compete with the creative ideas you can find there, but I wanted to share a couple of my favorite uses.

• Family notes. At our house, the place to find a note from someone who has left the premises is on the range hood in the kitchen. A sticky note attached to the range hood is an eye-catcher, almost directly in the line of vision, and extending beyond the range hood to make its presence -- and message -- known.
• Calendar notes. A few years ago, I bought one of those large, Post-it Note calendars to use as a planning tool, but it ended up not working for me -- at least not in the traditional way. Although I've reverted to my usual calendar/planner set-up, I've used those pages as project planners, even creating an entire fictional writing workshop (with color-coded events) for a character in one of my novels. I also use single sticky notes to remind myself of recurring events and due dates (you know--those "third Thursday of the month" events) a week ahead of time. I simply write the name of the task on the sticky note and put it on my desk calendar so that if I need to prepare anything, I have time to do so.
• File folder tabs.  I love all things stationery, and colorful file folders in fun prints are one of my favorite things. I use and reuse them until they begin to tear or become otherwise unusable, and they often serve multiple purposes before I retire them. Consequently, I hate to write on the tabs. I could write in pencil (that's what I do on manila file folders), but pencil doesn't show up well on colored file folders, so instead, I put a small, square sticky note on the tab and label it in Sharpie marker. If I'm feeling really fancy, I might even pull out my label maker. Then, when I'm ready to use the folder for something else, I just replace the Post-it Note, under which is a pristine file tab.

Inventive? Not terribly. Functional? Very!

What's your favorite way to use a sticky note?