Did you know that Post-it notes were invented accidentally?
One of the creators, a chemist at 3M was actually trying to come up with a super-strong adhesive but came up with a super-weak one instead.
Ironically, this has made the Post-it really user-friendly as you can stick them anywhere knowing that they are easily moved without any fuss.
I spoke to fellow Post-it user, Paula Goude yesterday – who runs both Wild Roots Marketing and RockRiver Expeditions. She has an ingenious way of using Post-it notes for her social media planning and blogging.
RockRiver has various topics on which to post about and Paula uses different coloured Post-it’s to segregate each topic (e.g. climbing, canoeing, hiking, blog posts, sales posts, what Michael is doing, what she is doing). These Post-it’s are then placed on a wall calendar and with a quick glance, Paula can see what topic is being written about when. This is particularly useful when her on-the-go partner, Mike, is providing her with interesting ‘live’ updates, sometimes requiring her to quickly chop and change what she is posting about. Being able to move these around (all the while having a bird’s eye view of her overall schedule) is really handy. Plus, it allows her to make sure she isn’t positng about the same topic two days in a row or forgetting anything important.
Having a system that is easy to use and quickly identifiable is key to maintaining interesting and fresh content.
The other way that Paula uses Post-it’s is to cut into strips and wrap around her phone cable – this stops her travelling husband disappearing up the Himalayas with her phone charger!
Here are some other uses for Post-it’s.
- Post-It notes are great for writing little reminders that need to be seen. Isn’t it interesting that you can even have a post-it note app for your computer – it literally posts a virtual post it on your desktop?
- They are small enough to write the short version of what needs to be done. Perfect for snippets or keeping it brief.
- You can get such a wide variety of shapes and sizes, they can be used for virtually anything. I like to use them for highlighting a page or brightening up my journaling.
- In fact, Charles Hutton has created this ingenious guide to life based on post-it note cartoons. If you haven’t seen them, check it @insta-chaz – quite brilliant.
Anything that can help organise and make your business easier to run is a win in my book.
Who says it has to be all spreadsheets and boring forms? Why not liven up your desk with some brightly coloured sticky notes and highlighters?
Got any uses that I haven’t covered here? Please do share in the comments below.
