Our younger daughter is a dinosaur, like me. She lives in the deep past, a world gone by long, long ago,
She places red sticky notes on her door to remind her of tasks. This makes me think of my editor back in the mid-1980s, and her method for remembering things. You could go into her office and find yellow sticky notes on her desk, the back of her chair, her typewriter, then when we moved to the Paleozoic Era, the computer.
When I left that job and went to work for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Dilbert was a new and growing comic strip. In the journalism field, you didn’t work in a cubicle or bureaucratic environment, so the humor of Dilbert made no sense to me. Within two weeks of joining DOE, it became the funniest strip ever. Part of that was because Yellow Sticky Note Man was a key character.
He would arrive at meetings with the little squares pasted to his forehead, roaming from office to mindless meeting, finding stale donuts to eat during his meaningless meanderings down muted hallways. The sticky notes reminded him of mundane and arcane things to say, useless tasks that come with large organizational anonymous culture.
Yellow stickies were funny not only due to the content, but because the author, Scott Adams, would place them strategically in funny places – like Dilbert’s forehead, or his glasses, or the back of his shirt. Since they are supposed to remind you to “do” something, finding them in places where you can’t see them made the notes doubly amusing.
I never thought sticky notepads would continue to exist in our electronically-saturated era. Particularly when it comes to Millennials, one would imagine that tapping a message into the smart phone would suffice. Set an alarm, make it go off when you need to get something done. Then the song or weird ringing sound would kick in, and off you’d go.
But I guess the smart phone doesn’t work for everything. Sometimes it lays a Pterodactyl egg, and you must choose alternative technology from eons ago.
You need something to stick to your door. You want something that you can peel off when the task is accomplished so you can THROW IT AWAY. “There, that’s done,” as you open the recycling container, toss it in, and dust your hands off. “What’s next?”
That’s how our daughter looks at it, and it’s why she uses this system. It gives her a sense of structure and let’s her know exactly where she is as she approaches high school graduation with all the exercises that must be finished before she can toss her hat in the air and scream, “It’s finally over.”
The red sticky notes dwindle. I was in talking with her last week and noticed a dent in the “to-do” list and remarked on it. She seemed calmer, more relaxed, more in-charge. This was probably due to the fact that more white space appeared on her door as she pulled the red sticky notes off.
Years ago, one of my work colleagues covered her door with Lockhorn comic strips -- where the husband and wife spoofed the state of marital bliss. Over a period of months, I took down strips one-by-one. For over a year, she noticed nothing.
Then one day, when there were only three left on her door, I heard a scream, “WHO TOOK DOWN ALL MY LOCKHORNS?” I began convulsing in laughter at my desk, went to her office and freely admitted my theft and destruction of the strips. She was aghast but ultimately forgave me.
Maybe putting comic strips or sticky notes on the door is dated, but pulling them down is still cathartic, and that makes the process timeless. If they still make sticky notes in 20 years, we’ll get to see what the next generation does.
She places red sticky notes on her door to remind her of tasks. This makes me think of my editor back in the mid-1980s, and her method for remembering things. You could go into her office and find yellow sticky notes on her desk, the back of her chair, her typewriter, then when we moved to the Paleozoic Era, the computer.
When I left that job and went to work for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Dilbert was a new and growing comic strip. In the journalism field, you didn’t work in a cubicle or bureaucratic environment, so the humor of Dilbert made no sense to me. Within two weeks of joining DOE, it became the funniest strip ever. Part of that was because Yellow Sticky Note Man was a key character.
He would arrive at meetings with the little squares pasted to his forehead, roaming from office to mindless meeting, finding stale donuts to eat during his meaningless meanderings down muted hallways. The sticky notes reminded him of mundane and arcane things to say, useless tasks that come with large organizational anonymous culture.
Yellow stickies were funny not only due to the content, but because the author, Scott Adams, would place them strategically in funny places – like Dilbert’s forehead, or his glasses, or the back of his shirt. Since they are supposed to remind you to “do” something, finding them in places where you can’t see them made the notes doubly amusing.
I never thought sticky notepads would continue to exist in our electronically-saturated era. Particularly when it comes to Millennials, one would imagine that tapping a message into the smart phone would suffice. Set an alarm, make it go off when you need to get something done. Then the song or weird ringing sound would kick in, and off you’d go.
But I guess the smart phone doesn’t work for everything. Sometimes it lays a Pterodactyl egg, and you must choose alternative technology from eons ago.
You need something to stick to your door. You want something that you can peel off when the task is accomplished so you can THROW IT AWAY. “There, that’s done,” as you open the recycling container, toss it in, and dust your hands off. “What’s next?”
That’s how our daughter looks at it, and it’s why she uses this system. It gives her a sense of structure and let’s her know exactly where she is as she approaches high school graduation with all the exercises that must be finished before she can toss her hat in the air and scream, “It’s finally over.”
The red sticky notes dwindle. I was in talking with her last week and noticed a dent in the “to-do” list and remarked on it. She seemed calmer, more relaxed, more in-charge. This was probably due to the fact that more white space appeared on her door as she pulled the red sticky notes off.
Years ago, one of my work colleagues covered her door with Lockhorn comic strips -- where the husband and wife spoofed the state of marital bliss. Over a period of months, I took down strips one-by-one. For over a year, she noticed nothing.
Then one day, when there were only three left on her door, I heard a scream, “WHO TOOK DOWN ALL MY LOCKHORNS?” I began convulsing in laughter at my desk, went to her office and freely admitted my theft and destruction of the strips. She was aghast but ultimately forgave me.
Maybe putting comic strips or sticky notes on the door is dated, but pulling them down is still cathartic, and that makes the process timeless. If they still make sticky notes in 20 years, we’ll get to see what the next generation does.