So many Post-Its, so little productivity!

July 29, 2011 7:16 PM

Best way to organize a flurry of Post-It notes covered in ideas, doodles, and designs so that the brainstorms within are easily accessible?

I've been on an illustration and design kick lately. Unfortunately, the only way I can get my creative juices flowing is to doodle, sketch, and scrawl on individual Post-It notes.

In a way, it's great: I'm producing so many ideas, and many of the ideas are of better quality than I'd have produced if I were drawing in a linear-type notebook. (I've tried fancy sketchbooks, spiral- and perfect-bound notebooks, the works.) In the end, Post-its work.

I now have an embarrassment of riches that I can't access.

I have an inch-thick stack of Post-Its tucked away on my desk, a few stuck in library books, some squirreled away in the pages of legal pads and regular spiral-bound notebooks... They're everywhere!

How can I make sense of the chaos? Some of the Post-Its are strictly one-idea doodles. Others have ideas for businesses, for slogans, or for stuff to put on my to-do list. Others still have been divided into nine squares and are filled with a motley assortment of drawings and words.

I've tried a few organizational strategies, but I'm coming up with cool ideas faster than I can straighten everything out. In the end, none of the ideas get air time because they're drowned out in noise.

Any ideas as to how I can get a grip on all these Post-It notes? Both digital and analog suggestions welcome!

posted by ElectricBlue to grab bag (12 answers total)

Your brainstorming style is generally called mind mapping these days, and is what was the original idea behind early hypertext systems like NoteCards and HyperCard (hence the "card" in their names, but the authors were thinking 3x5's 'cause this was in the days pre-Post-It). There are a number of computer implementations of it out now, depending on your OS you should be able to find something that'll run on your computer. You might start here.
Unfortunately you're faced with what is the fundamental problem with going from an analog mind map to a digital one, namely how the heck do you get those post-its from paper to on the computer so you can then organize them. For this you'll either have to transcribe them or scan them in (any reasonable mind map program will accept images as a node).
posted by Runes at 7:47 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

We just did a massive sorting exercise with post-it notes at work, though this was mainly a way to generate ideas for our project.

The technique we used was the KJ Technique, which I found out about in the UIE e-mail list. Basically it's a way to sort items based on focusing on a question, which you then answer by moving the notes around on a large blank space.

It works really well for groups, but it might also be able to adapt to your own work...
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:56 PM on July 29, 2011

How about scanning (or photographing) them each and then uploading them to evernote.com and tagging them appropriately?
posted by i_am_a_fiesta at 8:39 PM on July 29, 2011

Well, if they're on post-its, you could always just put them in a spiral notebook or a composition book. It's pretty lo-tech, but you could arrange them any way that your mind finds appropriate, and it wouldn't involve any extra labor.
posted by Gilbert at 9:15 PM on July 29, 2011

I'm low tech & very visual. My first thought was: Got a blank wall? Start stickying , that's what post-its are made for! Designate areas for different types of ideas and organize related stuff within those areas. Pull them off & move them as new ideas and associations form. Make a junk area you can go back to for ones that aren't moving you at this moment. Something removable like painters tape for making arrows, notes, and defining groupings. Of course, post-its lose their sticky after a while...
posted by Ys at 9:16 PM on July 29, 2011

Evernote was my first thought too. Could you take a digital photo of each and email them all to evernote? Then you can tag, notate, email, etc.
posted by kdern at 9:28 PM on July 29, 2011

If you're willing to go digital, you could also make a Prezi.
posted by msk1985 at 10:02 PM on July 29, 2011

Put aside some time where you will do nothing but organise. Put all your post-its into one big pile and the work your way through them top to bottom and spend no more than 10 seconds on each post-it to decide where it is to be organised into -- categories will emerge as you go through the sorting process. Be strict in working top to bottom and stick to the 10 second rule (why? so that you don't get distracted). Don't put things back on the pile, or focus in on only what looks interesting. Once you've worked through the pile, repeat with your categories. Do you need to create sub-categories? Are there duplicates? Would something be better elsewhere? Do you need to split a post-it into two separate ideas for two separate categories?

Categories can be context-based or project-based or whatever works for you.

When you go back to being creative and produce more post-its, take some time every day, or even once a week, and categorise the new post-its into your new system, and that way you will stay organised with only a little incremental effort.

After that, as others have suggested there are a plethora of tools and software you can use to record and archive once you've categorised.

What I've suggested above is a really cut-down version of the Getting Things Done methodology - if you want to take your productivity to new levels, it's a must-read.
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 10:04 PM on July 29, 2011

You could keep them in one of those index card cases with card guides. I've even seen little index card-sized accordion folders with dividers, too.

Since you're just storing your post-its, you don't even need to buy index cards.
posted by desertface at 11:36 PM on July 29, 2011

A former boss used to keep his notes on scraps of paper and then spazz out when he couldn't find a particular note at a particular time.

Finally got him to leave his notes in an box on his desk and every couple of days, I'd gather them up, organize them and "file" them on self-adhesive photo album pages. Similar to these and stored in binders.

He only liked the black background paper and really liked that the scraps could be easily moved around. I think the binders he bought had the ability to stand up on their own (like a desk easel?) so he could look at his notes. He also used to remove pages out of the binders & reorganize them, or pin them onto his wall.

(he also had a thing about tape & a fear of staplers. really successful & smart but very strange)
posted by jaimystery at 5:58 AM on July 30, 2011

How about a combination of things. Do the wall organization ideas above -- can you afford to paint a big area of wall with whiteboard paint? -- then store them in a photo album or take a picture of the brainstorming and store a plain-paper printout in a binder.

(Do they still make those old photo albums with the "magnetic" pages with a plastic overlay? They're bad for photos, but they'd be good for storing multiple pieces of paper in a specific configuration. Or, if the wall organization involved lots of writing, take a digital photo of the relevant brainstorming area, print it out on regular paper, store it in a scrapbooking album (bigger, square, pages).
posted by bentley at 6:13 AM on July 30, 2011

I'd get a few corkboards and some push pins. You could then overlap them or stack on top without worrying that they'll lose their stick. One board could be to-dos. Another big board could be work.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:01 PM on July 30, 2011