Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of Stationery Freaks with myself Rob Lamba and of course.
Helen:I'm with me Helen Lisowsky.
Rob:How are you doing Helen?
Helen:I've got a little bit of a cold so I hope that doesn't come through.
Rob:Yeah, our whole house has taken over with colds and it's GCSE mock week as well, so there's been a lot of drama in there. Yeah. Looking forward to the weekend. So today, Helen, we're gonna talk about scrap notes, desk pads, grabbing whatever's possible to capture that note, that thought, that idea as and when we have it, aren't we?
Helen:Yeah. So I think part of this is going to be about how do you do that? What do we use? But also then how what's your process? Because it will be a process for turning that into something actual.
Helen:Yeah, you know, you've got something down for a reason. What do you then do with it?
Rob:That's it. And does it make sense? You know, I often write things down. Then, know, a few weeks later, you look at it and go, what was that? So maybe we'll talk about a technique that I've started using to do So before we jump into that topic though, Helen, what's happening in your stationery world?
Helen:Okay, so I've managed a whole month without any new notebook purchases, a whole
Rob:That's impressive.
Helen:I know, right?
Rob:Are you in withdrawal at the moment? Are you shaking?
Helen:I well, because I don't know if you've been on Instagram lately, but Mark and Fold have got a new notebook called the Glow.
Rob:Oh.
Helen:And you open it up and what they've kind of got on the inside, I mean, I'm gonna make it sound quite tacky, but it's really beautiful. The inside bound edge is like got this neon orange spray so that it graduated, so deep, deep in the middle and very, very quickly fading out. So when you open it and it lays open, it has this glow and I just want one. Wow.
Rob:I've I've literally just gone to their website and that does look really cool.
Helen:It does. Really good job, Amy. Loving it.
Rob:Yeah. So that's that's what that's some sort of like print, isn't it? It's it? Wow. Yeah, it's like an orange print or a different colored print.
Helen:3zero Yeah, in
Rob:the middle to give it that sort of glow burst effect.
Helen:And do you remember when we went up for them? Big do? We had a lovely chat with a lady's name? I've not got on the tip of my tongue? Who was their binder.
Helen:Wasn't she? Yes. She did all the binding for that. So that's another awesome job. Precision, mustn't it?
Rob:Yeah, definitely. We'll include a link in the show notes in and in the newsletter, which you can find at stationaryfreaks.com. But that is pretty impressive. It's pretty, pretty expensive as well.
Helen:I know. And if you're shipping it anywhere sort of internationally, that's gonna that's gonna be something to do. But if you are, say, a luxury stationary retailer and you're looking for something a bit different, this will definitely be
Rob:awesome. Oh, that's very impressive indeed. And actually speaking of international, Helen, we do look at the stats, don't we? And we're so blessed and amazed with how many people are downloading episodes. So thank you so much.
Rob:And, we've obviously got stats running on the podcast system that tell us where people are listening. And we thought we'd do a little bit of a shout out to some of the countries that I guess didn't surprise us necessarily, but we're just, I guess, blessed with, you know, the global reach, shall we say, of this podcast. And of course, up at the top, the, you know, the most popular audience location is United States. So hi to everyone in The US. Hello.
Rob:I'm actually probably, possibly, depending on what happens, heading over to Florida in a few months. So, I am. I'm doing a talk at a conference. So looking forward to that, if I get there, of course. Then we've got The United Kingdom, which makes sense.
Rob:That's where we are. We've got Australia and then we've got Canada and then we've got various places in Europe. Helen, what were some of the ones that stood out to you?
Helen:Okay. So Kazakhstan. Hi. You know? Yeah.
Helen:Hi. I was surprised that that we have people downloading Stationery Freaks Kazakhstan. Hi. Welcome aboard. Lovely to see you.
Rob:Indeed, I think the one that stood out for me was was probably Rwanda.
Helen:I know.
Rob:So yeah, hi to everyone, everyone. It might just be one person who's listening in Rwanda. So yeah, we've got global reach, Helen.
Helen:I know, I've got friends in Rwanda, so I might now after this, go and just check to see if that will be there.
Rob:So it's you and your extended family and friends across the globe, is it, that we're listening?
Helen:Yeah, that's the size of it, think. Anyway, welcome wherever you're listening in the world. Welcome. And we might do a little shout out to other countries as well over the over the weeks.
Rob:Indeed. And we needed a little bit of help, didn't we, with some AI calculating tools? Because we noticed in The US it gives you this different states as well. And we noticed that we have not point not 7% of our US listeners are in Wyoming. Indeed, and we've calculated it, it's probably not right.
Rob:Obviously, there'll be some mathematicians and out there who might draw, you know, raise an eyebrow at this calculation. But we reckon it's probably about 12 or 13 people in Wyoming that are listening to this.
Helen:Probably not all at the same time.
Rob:No. And it might just be the same person listening over and over again to
Helen:the same
Rob:episode. There you go.
Helen:Hi, Wyoming, and all of you, however many of you there are.
Rob:That's it. So Helen, you sent me a message a couple of weeks back about a really cool article. And me being me, I acknowledged the message had arrived, and then I completely ignored it, forgot about it, didn't follow it.
Helen:Us, Rob. I try for you.
Rob:I know. I know. And then I was doing a bit of my own little Internet rabbit search as I always do, and I came across a sub stack called noted. This is actually the same sub stack that you sent me in that message a couple of weeks back.
Helen:Shocking that I might recognize something you'd be interested in, Rob.
Rob:I know. I know. I do apologize. But I just wanna know, we'll include this in the in the newsletter and the show notes because it is wonderful. It is a I guess a journey through other people's notebooks, how people use them.
Helen:Yeah.
Rob:You know, this it's wonderful. And it's by a person called, I'm just trying to find her name, I can't find her name, but she is an English professor at a university and she's the author of a book called How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information. Wonderful. That's right up my street. And it's a great newsletter.
Helen:Not only that, but she's got to be a world expert in that super niche topic. Right?
Rob:Yeah. But the the whole newsletter, I mean, there's some paid posts which I haven't quite graded to yet. But yeah, I lost myself for about four hours.
Helen:Did. Haven't looked at it, obviously, I sent it to you, which is annoying. But yes, we will not only give you a link to it, but we will also give her name, pride of place in the newsletter. I
Rob:found it now. It's Jillian Hess.
Helen:Jillian Hess. Yes.
Rob:So Jillian, keep doing what you're doing because that is a wonderful newsletter.
Helen:Yeah,
Rob:really enjoyed that. So Helen, let's jump in to today's topic scrap notes. Now, we were originally inspired by this because we we have a Trello board with all of the ideas that we've got for this podcast. And one of them was desk pads. Now, we've talked a lot about desk pads in the past, you know, you use them.
Helen:I do.
Rob:I do occasionally. But we're going to talk a little bit broader than that, aren't we? We're going to talk about how we actually capture things and whether the desk pad is the single source or whether we use other mechanisms as
Helen:Yeah, absolutely. I think this is good. And I should say that you all know I'm a big fan of the Mark and Fold desk pad that I had for a long, long time. When that ran out, it happened to coincide with a surprise sample sale at Martha Brooks. Oh, I was on the list for because if you remember, I bought their advent calendar and says marketing doesn't work.
Helen:Hey, do you want a desk pad? It's reduced because it's been branded up as something. I don't know, they spelled it wrong or I don't know what it was, but it's no longer required for the person who ordered it. So it's now much, much cheaper. So I went bought that and I have loved it.
Helen:I have loved it. It's just so joyful.
Rob:What do you what do you use your desk pad for?
Helen:So if I'm talking with someone in a meeting, I take my notes onto that because I take notes quite graphically. There's lots of arrows. I also doodle when I'm listening. So if you're ever in a meeting with me and I'm doodling, I am not not paying attention as all my teachers thought I wasn't. This is how my brain keeps my, I don't know, my mind focused on the topic I'm I doodle.
Helen:Not with any great artistic gift I would add. It's usually like geometric patterns and such. I do that because that's I'm taking notes. I'll take very, very short three words and then arrows and lots and lots of abbreviations, which I will come back to. So I write all this down and I will turn my pad round rather than take the page off.
Helen:If I run out of space, I will turn it round so I can use a different corner to write some more stuff. I am very irreverent with it. It is absolutely I've got some bits and pieces here. It's got all sorts of things layered onto it that are not related in any way. So several conversations will have happened and the information will all be interspersed between it.
Rob:So that that's kind of interesting because I thought you were using, you know, digital tools. We talked about this in the last episode. Yeah. And I thought you had to sort of dedicated note, but not necessarily quite a bullet journal for your work notes, but it sounds like you're also capturing them on a desk pad.
Helen:The desk pad is the I need to write stuff down now that doesn't interrupt the flow. And then when I finished before the end of the day, depending on how busy I am, those pages, I will when I finished it, when it's full, as in, you know, properly full, or I finished that topic and I've got time, I will rip it off and I will transfer the salient points whilst I can still remember what all the abbreviations and annotations mean. I will transfer the salient bits into Obsidian with tags so that I can Right. Find this stuff again later. What did I say?
Helen:What did I agree to? How much did I say this was gonna cost? And how the hell did I get to that number is a really good one. So I actually explain out my maths a lot because I won't remember once I've been to sleep, I will not remember. And God forbid if somebody asked me on Monday what I was just talking to them about on Friday.
Helen:On Friday, it will have been crystal clear. On Monday, it could have been pulled out of my backside.
Rob:Yeah, you see when I'm doing sort of client work, it's always in notepads. So I don't use scrap notes and, you know, desk pads for that. In fact, I don't even use a desk pad. There's an article I read a while back, and I'll include a link again in the newsletter to a website called, I think it's called attorney at work. It's all about legal, espousalistas, lawyers, that kind of thing.
Rob:They had this writer, I think his name was Bull Garlington is his name.
Helen:Okay.
Rob:And I think he's a freelance writer and he did a whole series for them called Analog Attorney. And the whole thing was about how to be a lawyer, how to be a solicitor, using analog, using pens and paper and writing letters. Interesting. Yeah. It was a really, really, really great series.
Rob:I don't think he does it anymore, but you know, these articles are still up there. And there's one where he uses low and behold, a yellow legal pad.
Helen:Oh, your favorite.
Rob:Yeah, my favorite. So I run very similar to what he does, which is to have a page for the day where you've maybe got, you know, your meetings, your actions, you know, whatever it is that you're trying to do for the day on a single page. Typically as well, he does, it's a Cornell method where you sort of carve off, push into the side for In things that his post, he takes a picture of the pad at the start of the day and then he takes a picture at the end where there's doodles, there's coffee spills, there's all sorts all over it. And I approach it the same way. So I tend to use a yellow legal pad for that same purpose.
Rob:However, I often find myself anywhere in the house, at work, wherever, without my usual systems. And I'm sure you do too. How do you capture those fleeting ideas, those moments, those insights? Maybe it's even you know, an idea for a story.
Helen:Yeah, I mostly will get up and come into my study because I am fortunate to work from home. So my, because it's all familiar, and I, if I don't follow the system I have, I would put it on a post it if it was short. But post its are, I mean, I've got a couple of post its on my desk. And in fact, some of the post its are so old that the sticky no longer works and I've had to stick them on with washi tape. It's because I want to be able to find that information really, really fast, But I don't expect it to live forever, even though some of them appear to.
Helen:But I Yeah, I'm not really.
Rob:It's that's interesting, because we're getting older, you know, and say you can't remember anything from Friday to Monday.
Helen:But that's always been my problem. That's not you.
Rob:Do you do you ever forget what it was that you were going into your study to write down Oh, on
Helen:gee. Yeah. Oh my god. Yes. Threshold problem.
Helen:Don't forget I've got the threshold. I could get to the hallway. So might you go from my living room into the hallway and then into my study. If I can get from the living room to the hallway, I can forget. I can deviate and go and do the washing.
Helen:I mean, this is a classic example, Rob. I was setting up the appointment for us in our calendars Yeah. To record this, having had to cancel on you several times. I'm very sorry. And there I am sitting waiting for you at 09:00 one morning only to find that actually I never sent you the invitation.
Helen:I don't know, I saw a squirrel in the middle and off I went and yeah, I'm that finishing bit. Really, really super important.
Rob:Yeah, there's a there's a guy that we follow isn't the keynote speaker guy Marcus Brown is his name. And he did a video about what it's like having ADHD. And it's very similar to a classic Malcolm in the Middle episode where, you know, he's trying to fix something. He goes into the garage to get screwdriver or something and then ends up having to, know, replace the light bulb. Then he takes the engine out the car and, and his wife's like, what are you doing?
Rob:He's like, I'm fixing the drawer or whatever it is. And Marcus Brown, I think that's his name did did a similar thing where he's got a he's got an action to do and then he's off and then next thing you know, he's, he's just all over the place.
Helen:I mean, if I made it to my study in exactly that way, Rob, if I made it to my study, sometimes I could forget to go back. So I'll sit down and start doing something my husband will yell from the other room. Are you still making this tea? Or do you want me to do this?
Rob:Yeah, I occasionally my studies down at the bottom of garden. It's not far. It's not a huge garden. We're not talking like West Wing and East Wing. You know, it's about 65 foot thinking then but the the friction of getting up from the house and walking down to the studio to use my regular system is, is too much usually, particularly with the rain that we've had over the last couple of months.
Rob:And so that's why I carry 20 odd books back and forth in this little bag. And I've done a video on that for my other channel. But I therefore use whatever is around me to capture those notes.
Helen:Yeah.
Rob:And that can be the back of an envelope, you know, which is pretty old school.
Helen:Yeah, I've done that before, to be fair.
Rob:Yeah, I don't tend to write on my hands anymore. Did used
Helen:to do that. I'm a
Rob:bit more aware of ink poisoning and various different things. But at a pinch, really, I pretty much always got my phone with me. And therefore it ends up in Apple Notes or Todoist. And if I don't have my phone with me, we do have Alexa systems. And that's the ultimate last resort is asking Alexa to make a note.
Helen:I know.
Rob:And I mean, that thing drives me mad.
Helen:I am beginning to get very much nervous around the fact that it's always listening. Worry about, you know, obviously welcoming our new robot overlords, just in case you're talking about that. But it's really interesting that you're saying that. So you've got that shed at the bottom of garden, your workshop really, because it's not a shed, it's actually a proper
Rob:It's a studio, it's a proper studio. Yeah.
Helen:And you put that isolation, which makes it so perfect for deep work. Yeah. Also is friction for access to all your usual systems and such.
Rob:Yeah.
Helen:That's a massive trade off in in positive and negative, right?
Rob:Yeah. And the video I did was was the bag that I carry up and down to the house. And I think in the end, there was about 12 notebooks and random stuff in this bag that finds its way in. And I do a lot of video and I do a lot of podcasts and a lot of music. So I'm carrying cameras as well.
Rob:Yeah. And part of the deal when I had this built was that none of my crap as my wife calls it would live up in the house. But I actually every night, there's all my crap that goes up to the house and then comes back down with me in the morning. And it's just laziness. But I think with scrap notes, I just use post it notes.
Rob:I just use anything that's lying around.
Helen:I have to be honest, I was talking to another writer actually the other day. And we were just laughing about the fact that your best ideas are like 3AM, but you can't turn the light on if you've got a partner. So your phone is really your only access, but we were just, you know, basically sharing tales of war about how hard it is to interpret what the hell you were trying to say the day before. Yeah. When you wake up in the morning, I mean, you've seen, I I need autocorrect like I need oxygen because my the letters are all there mostly but they're not in the right order because my fingers don't care.
Helen:So my brain will throw out the letters mostly, which means that if you don't have autocorrect, but sometimes when you're in 03:00 in the morning and you're busy shoving an idea, you know, with a fuzzy brain that you've just had into your phone, sometimes it auto corrects incorrectly. And then you get up at seven in the morning or six in the morning and you're looking at this going, I have absolutely no idea what that means. It's not English. It's not a sentence. The words are just like the same problem as I have with letters.
Helen:But but my brain has done that with words. All the words are kind of not in the right order.
Rob:I have a no phone in the bedroom policy. My wife has the phone in the bedroom, but I don't know, I don't adjust that last thing I need is more stimulus and temptation. And before I try and sleep and you know, you've known me for years, I do not sleep. I just don't sleep. So if I have an idea at three in the morning, I actually get up and I go and flesh that idea out downstairs on a computer or a notepad or whatever.
Helen:I sigh deeply in sadness for you, Rob.
Rob:Should be thinking
Helen:at 3AM.
Rob:I should be I should be but you know, maybe that's my most productive time. Who knows? But you know, going back one of the things I've been exploring, and this really isn't stationary in some respects, it pains me a little bit that this is actually easier and less friction with more reward is using the voice memo app on the phone.
Helen:I don't use that.
Rob:Do you not? Apple, I'm an Apple ecosystem
Helen:Yeah, am.
Rob:The Voice Memo is just so easy to open. You just hit record, you speak, and it then also gives you a transcript of it. So you've got the text. And for me, I'm better at verbally articulating stuff often than I am at sitting down and slowing my brain down enough to get those words onto paper. So it's actually really helpful.
Rob:I just sit and talk to my phone, and it gives me the words afterwards and then I can sort of do what I want to with them.
Helen:That sounds genius. I suspect mine would be a long and meandering soliloquy of which I would struggle to find the point that I was trying to make. I haven't tried it. My daughter often texts me with little voice messages and that sends me voice messages and I find that mildly inconvenient because I have to stop what I'm doing to listen to it. I have to make sure that I'm not in the middle of a meeting just, you know.
Rob:That's nice, though. That because you get to hear her voice. Know? Yes. Absolutely.
Rob:It's much more personal, isn't it?
Helen:Yeah. I mean, you know, so we'll just start asking for things again. That's fine.
Rob:So I think I started using this because I was commuting a lot. You know, we've worked together and some of the commutes I was doing were were insane, an hour and a half each way, two hours each way.
Helen:Yeah, I've done that. You'll remember.
Rob:Yeah, and that's, I listen to podcasts, so I don't necessarily squander that time. Certainly don't enjoy it and it's not a life to lead, I could tell you that. But the voice app was where I started using that when I'm driving along and that's when my ideas will will hit. I've listened to a podcast that's given me a bit of a spark or something. You just hit record, speak through the car hands free and you've got your note and yeah, I've got hundreds and hundreds of voice notes and you can then add them to sort of Apple notes, and then you've got the text and the audio.
Rob:It's been a game changer. But I'm still sat here with post it notes all over.
Helen:I was gonna ask about that. Do you, you know, do you collect your notes? Do you ever review them? Do you have what's your process for taking something that's on a note? I mean, can you put the washing on or whatever it is?
Helen:That's, know, you do it, you screw it up, you throw it away. One would hope. You know? Yeah. But but do you is that the only kind of note you make?
Helen:Are you making other ones that are doing other things?
Rob:Yeah, so I always have super sticky Post it notes. We're big fans of the super sticky ones. And I always use the slightly bigger ones. They're not the little square ones. The actual rectangular ones.
Rob:No Super sized ones like we used to use, just regular sort of rectangular ones. I've always got a pad on my desk. Now when we were chatting in the prerecording of this, I made all the notes on a post it note. That will go in the bin because once we've done the episode, there's no need for that. But to the left of me is wall, and on there are various Post it notes that aren't actioned.
Rob:You know, for example, I've got one here that says Formula of Fear by Hybrid and that's a song that I heard. So I've just captured it there. That should really go into Apple Notes, but it is just sat on the wall.
Helen:That should go into a playlist and be done.
Rob:Yeah, absolutely. But you know, it's there. It keeps reminding me. And then
Helen:we'll just move on. Tell me what why? When do you sit down? Do you have a process for sitting down and going through all of these? I mean, or do you just they stay up there until you fancy doing something with them?
Rob:Yeah, I mean, we've we've chatted for years. And if you've listened to any of the older podcasts for the audience, you'll know that we fluctuate or I particularly do between analog and digital. There's a time when I jump into to do list and everything goes in there. So this example here of a song, yes, absolutely, it should open up Deezer and I'll add it to the playlist at some point. But I've got another one here that says sort the car out because we've got a bit of fault with it.
Rob:That should go into Todoist. But Todoist is so full of so much stuff because it's it's endless. It's infinite. You can you can add a million tasks to it. And so I wouldn't ever see I just get overwhelmed.
Rob:And so it sits there reminding me of that. And at some point, I will add it to the smart planner, which is what I do use still to plan my week. As and when I get around to it.
Helen:I must say, as I'm listening to you, I am reminded very forcibly of how we have I mean, we've done entire episodes on. Actually, it doesn't matter what tools you use, it's your process needs to flow from inception through to, you know, having it done. And where we have captured things, and it becomes overwhelming rather than a prioritized list, where we're not got processes to review things on a regular basis, everything gets out of hand. And it's exactly what big companies find, isn't it? When when everything is important, nothing is important.
Helen:You can't see the wood for the trees. And you get to the stage where you just clear everything down and start again. And actually, that's a failure process, not a failure of the tools, or a failure of capture. It's that joining that process up. And I mean, life is a search for me for that perfect process.
Helen:And it sometimes changes. So sometimes I get really good and it works really well for a while. And then part of my job changes or part of my life changes. And that bit doesn't work anymore. And it's so uncomfortable for me for a time where it doesn't flow.
Helen:Just like you said, just exactly as you've said, which is I've got all this stuff in Todoist and I can't. Me, I'm loving Todoist, but that's because not everything goes into Todoist.
Rob:Yeah. It's the irony is, is that this is what I do day to day. Consult with organizations and help them essentially go from an idea in the business to something of value. I mean, that is what I do. And I like to think I'm very good at it.
Rob:In my own life, I'm driven far more by the need to create than I am by the need to organize and structure my days. Maybe I bring I've this to got a little mini whiteboard with my publishing schedule on it. Yeah. That is what drives my week. So I have a certain amount of content, certain amount of client outreach, certain amount of workshops, whatever that I'm trying to do for the week, that drives my focus.
Rob:Friday afternoons are usually a bit of a close down, and that's where I would do some of the admin and some of the tasks. Yeah. And maybe at the weekend I will get around to doing some of the household stuff. But I'm driven by the energy I have. I know, for example, that Mondays, I am awful on a Monday.
Rob:I hate Mondays. It's my lowest energy day. So I structure Monday to be the writing, maybe recording a couple of podcasts from other episodes from other podcast.
Helen:Yeah.
Rob:And getting everything ready. That Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is production, making stuff, creating stuff, and everything else just moves out the way.
Helen:That's interesting because, you know, I'm judging it by how much stuff I get done. And in fact, companies, that's what companies want to do. How do I get the maximum throughput? But that's really important because what you've just really highlighted there is that that's not necessarily your objective. So your objective is to capture this stuff so that when you're feeling creative or you want to do some creative stuff, you have got ideas and stuff to do.
Helen:You've got admin that needs to be done. So you've got like buckets of things to pull from based on how you feel at the time. And that's actually quite an effective solution for you.
Rob:It is. And it's not necessarily about how I feel at the time. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is always creative mode always, or client work if if that's happening. And so it isn't necessarily about how I feel. I guess what I'm we chat about this in the goal session is that painted picture of the future.
Rob:Yeah. And one of the things that I know that I've always been drawn to, you've worked with me long enough to know that I love publishing. I love
Helen:You do.
Rob:Writing and making and creating. And one of my overarching, I guess, decisions that you make or I make at the beginning of the week is what am I going to do this week that's going to contribute to that body of work? I don't want to get to the end of the week and say I had a fantastic week organizing admin, doing stuff. I want to get to the end of the week and say I've done at least one thing this week that has contributed to that body of work that has allowed me to express myself. Now obviously there are constraints, there's work, there's commitments, there's kids, but if I don't get one thing done, then that feels to me like a painful week, even if all of those hundreds of tasks that keep building up get done.
Rob:It's balance. It's managing that tension, isn't it?
Helen:It is. And it's about deciding what a successful outcome looks to you.
Rob:So for
Helen:me, thinking, you're saying about that whole, you want to have added to that body of work, I just want to have sat down and created something once or twice that week. Once will do.
Rob:That's the same thing.
Helen:If Mine is, know, I'm a writer forced to work, unfortunately. So finding that time and mental capacity, because I can't write if I've been hugely, hugely busy at work. So I'm I'm yeah. I think thinking about it less in terms of, you know, we fail to do this or because we've started out this conversation with, oh, well, I'm not really good at this and I don't yeah. And I don't do this.
Helen:But actually, the outcome that we're going for is not necessarily served by ticking a load of things off your list or removing all those post it notes. It's about capturing stuff and having exciting topics that, know, incite you to write. Or having, you know, if you're doing an admin day, knowing what that admin involves, because you've captured it, and it's ready to go.
Rob:Yeah, in a sense, I'm sort of theming the days and come back to the scrap notes piece. And I probably spent a good couple of years generating ideas, capturing stuff, thoughts, ideas, inspiration, hundreds and hundreds of them. But nothing was going out. None of those ideas would been turned into anything of value. And it felt productive.
Rob:Yeah, because I was ideating. Was observing and noticing I was working, I was getting stuff done. But it wasn't the stuff that I feel is going to be in that body of work. Was just stuff. And I look at it like a funnel.
Rob:And at the top of the funnel is a just never ending amount of ideas. Most creative people particularly have no shortage of ideas.
Helen:No, that's right.
Rob:And so every time there's a scrap note, every time there's anything, there's a potential distraction, because I could get giddy about the potential, could spend longer noodling it and, you know, exploring it and, you know, ideating even more. But there's no inherent value in that. It's, it's just an idea it needs turning into something. Yeah, so I treat it like a funnel. And everything goes into the wide end.
Rob:But as I narrow down the choices of what I'm going to work on, I increase my commitment towards it. And that's the point is then I commit to it, and I get it done. And everything else just stops, hopefully, for at least a couple of hours, three hours, whatever it is that needs doing so that something gets done. And when we work with organizations, the same thing, isn't it? They pull in way too much stuff, the busy on 1,000 different things and nothing pops out the back end.
Helen:Yeah, because everything's in progress for so long, because you're trying to do 87 things at once. I think I'm going to refer start referring to this as the discipline of finishing because that's exactly what it is. It's that ideation is fine. I love that creative part of writing.
Rob:Yeah.
Helen:But actually, you've still got editing and structure and plot flow and arcs. All those kind of things are matter, matter so much. It won't make a good story, but a good story can't happen without them. And the discipline of finishing is different from the sitting down and writing. And that sitting down and creating is just wonderful.
Helen:But if you don't have that discipline for finishing, and that's kind of what it sounds to me too.
Rob:Yeah. So, know, go back to scrap notes piece, every scrap note ends up somewhere. Maybe not necessarily effectively and efficiently as it could do. I'm just looking at Apple Notes now, there's an editorial backlog that's got nine thirty two things in it. These are ideas.
Rob:These are things that I'll write down on a scrap note, take a picture, upload it, whatever. Then there's a folder called sprouts, which are things that have some potential. Not all ideas are good. Then there's one called now, which is the ideas that have made it through that funnel. These are the ones that I'm going to commit to.
Rob:And in a sense, it's a James Clear way of building a system that allows you to take something and turn it into something valuable. Otherwise, it's just, you know, 932 ideas. They're not worth anything. They're just ideas. No, And every scrap note, whether it's in to dos for tasks and admin or whether it's on my wall here.
Rob:But coming back to the scrap note idea, and maybe we round out because I realize we've ramble chatted as usual about this. And what do you do when you encounter a scrap note that makes no sense to you whatsoever? You wrote it down three weeks ago,
Helen:throw it away.
Rob:You throw it away.
Helen:I mean, I will give it some time, I will stare at it. And before I throw a spat note away, especially one that's been around for a little while. So I have something in front of me here that I tucked into the back of my hubbinicci because it was how I worked out the costings for something. And I had it all written down on bits of paper. I have I have written it up, but obviously at some point, I hadn't written it up and I stuck it in the back of my notes, in the back of my Hobonichi.
Helen:So I'm being really careful to make sure to review them all and read every single bit on there to say, does that make sense? Do I need to remember that? Can I even remember what it means? And then I will throw them away. And if I don't remember, I throw it away anyway because it's no good to me.
Helen:It's not a pet. If it's not serving its purpose by actually giving me information, it's in the bin. It would be nice if it could serve its purpose before it died, but it's dying.
Rob:That's it. Yeah, when we were recording before we started recording, were finishing your lunch and I was tidying my desk. That's disorganized. Both of us are. And I was tidying up because I've had a whole week of of doing films and podcasts and some client work.
Rob:And literally, were scrap notes everywhere. There was index cards, post it notes, just little bits of paper. And it's distracting if you don't do what you've just said, do something with it.
Helen:Yes.
Rob:It creates an open loop, doesn't it? Sits It there taunting
Helen:does. It's like it's like litter in my brain. Yes. It's like when the house is really untidy, I can't settle, I can't rest. It's not that I'm particularly tidy, but I love it when everything is all sorted out.
Helen:I love it when my desk is clear because I feel like I've got room to think and create. If it's all untidy and there's scrap notes everywhere, yeah, I'm never gonna remember. But I cannot live without the scrap notes.
Rob:That's it.
Helen:I have a scratch pad. I I I called it a scratch pad. It's so it really it's a desk pad that I write scrap notes on. And it's like a, you know, it it's absolutely unapologetically work in process. It's ugly, it's poorly written, it's abbreviated to within an inch of its life.
Rob:But it says purpose, doesn't it? It gets things out of your head and onto a temporary, transient form of record.
Helen:Yeah, it allows me to capture things that I need to remember for a short amount of time without interrupting my flow of conversation or meeting.
Rob:Yeah. And I have a little whiteboard, which I often use for that. And I've just been building a new course. And you know when you have a thought, but you don't capture it in a scrap note, then you're like, I'll remember that. I'm bound to remember that.
Rob:I have to remember that because it's it's it needs to be done. Yes. And I launched the course. And guess what I forgot to do? I forgot to add the course to the website.
Rob:That was like the final thing. And I was sat there yesterday going, add it to the website, upload it, get it get it ready to go. And everything else was done. Everything was built, it just needed to be put on the website so people could click on it. So I had some people come back, people I'd worked hard to try and attract to the course to say, well, there's no course there.
Rob:I was like, damn it.
Helen:But that yeah. I mean, that's exactly it, Rob. That's just like me trying to sort our meeting out for the other day and forgetting to invite you.
Rob:The other thing that we just wanna maybe leave you with is a request. I mean, me and Helen don't go out much as you can probably tell if you listen to this podcast a lot.
Helen:We're both remote workers, I hasten to add. Both work. I work completely remotely and Rob works largely remotely, I think is fair. So we don't get out
Rob:of it. We don't. And we're always amazed though. I remember a few years back watching, I was in an airport lounge and there was a fellow stationery freak and she was doing collaging in the airport. Had scissors, she had ink, glue, loads of stuff that I would never contemplate ever taking with me if I travel.
Rob:And we actually featured that story in the travelers, the stationary traveler or the traveling stationary freak. But we love to see stationary being used in the wild and out and about at your own desk, your work, if you're able to take pictures, and we'd really like it if you could maybe share some of that stuff on Instagram and tag us in it because we're always really keen as you might get from these podcasts. How do people use stationary to unleash potential?
Helen:It doesn't have to be pretty. Rob does beautiful photos, but you'll have seen mine.
Rob:They
Helen:are, you know, in focus, I think that's all we can say reasonably lit. And so it doesn't have to be beautiful, what we're interested in is that utility. Are you, what does your setup look like? You know, cover anything, you know, sensitive up, but what does your setup look like? How is your desk look with your paper and pens and all the rest of it on it?
Helen:I'm off to a writing retreat in a couple of weeks. So I will be shamelessly running around and taking photos of my fellow authors temporary desk setups. Nice. They've got pens and papers.
Rob:Nice. Yeah. So please do share it on Instagram. If you are on Instagram, you can find us at stationary freaks UK. And yeah, tag us if you think we'd be interested in that stationary setup.
Rob:And we're always open to having guests on the podcast as well. If you've listened to some of the previous episodes, know that we interview people about how they use their stationery, whether they're a maker of stationery or a user of stationery, or just somebody who loves good stationery. So let us know you can find many ways to get in touch with us at stationeryfreaks.com. And there will be a newsletter. And I will include a few pictures of my messy desk and Helen, maybe you can do a few snaps of your desk and we'll include that too.
Helen:Yeah, I'll have to remove the cat from it. She permanently takes up residence. Yeah.
Rob:I think a cat on the desk adds charm and charisma and honesty to it.
Helen:It certainly is honest. Certainly how my desk usually looks. We work around the cat.
Rob:And if you do check out stationary freaks UK, that's our Instagram handle. And I did clear my writing bureau today because it was a complete mess. It's a bit of a dumping ground to do a new series of videos about using the typewriter for productivity. And I did a little video and I'm going to put it out there now and say, am going to finish that video and put it up onto that Instagram channel. There I've committed Helen,
Helen:you have committed in front of the world.
Rob:Indeed. Although I could edit this bit out of the podcast and
Helen:You could do. You you you could also not edit this podcast and put it live until after you've done the thing. We could be on that long lead time.
Rob:That's true. Alright. Well, with that, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Like I say, you can find us at stationaryfreaks.com, where you'll find all the back catalog of the 70 odd episodes that we've done on this topic. And you can find us on Instagram at stationeryfreaksuk.
Rob:So Helen, anything else before we close out?
Helen:No, no, it's a joy still be able to do this for everybody.
Rob:I know. Brilliant. It. So with that, we shall speak to you in the next episode. You take care yourselves.
Rob:Bye bye.
Helen:Bye.