Photo by and of the Author(s) in a kinder, simpler time (2020)

Sorry, Another Whiteboard on Your Wall Will Not Organize Your Life.

Unless you put some systems in place first.

I’m pretty sure there’s a kind of evolution-of-solutions for people trying to get the chaos of their lives more organized.

It starts with the lure of apps: this one has five stars! It’s approved by Marques Brownlee! I can try it out for two weeks for free! And fifteen days later when the year-long-subscription cost hits your bank account because you not only forgot to cancel the trial but you forgot to use the app entirely three days after installing it…you begin to realize that your devices might not be the answer.

So you turn to notebooks. Oh, the joy of notebooks! The fine papers, the cheap papers, solutions for people who want to recycle their office reports or people who want to have linen pages hand-numbered by Greek nuns and covered in ethically-sourced Alpaca fur. There’s infinite layouts, mini-maxi-mediavalist, you can go all the way from buying your first Moleskine to sourcing rare imported bookbinding materials in back-alley paper shops.*

Until you find yourself with a stack of mostly-but-not-quite-empty notebooks on your bookshelf **, and you recognize the truth: once you write something in a notebook, the odds that you will ever actually open it again and read it are…