Are you addicted to using sticky notes? Has the overuse of sticky notes caused your life to spin out of control? Have you tried to stop using so many sticky notes on your own, but have failed time and time again? It may be time to check into sticky note rehab.

Less is More

Sticky notes, those wonderfully useful little pieces of paper that are meant as “temporary” place holders for information, are life savers and life robbers at the same time.  If used responsibly and in moderation, sticky notes can be an effective tool for keeping information in front of you. Sadly though, in many homes and offices that I visit, sticky note abuse is usually accompanied by a lot of overwhelm and stress.  I see sticky notes on book pages, notebooks, computer screens, desktops, walls, dry erase boards, refrigerators, calendars and even on the floor. 

You Must Transfer the Information

The problem is if there isn’t a system in place to transfer that “temporary” information somewhere else, a bottleneck situation will occur and then complete chaos ensues.  After a while, if you are looking at too many sticky notes, it becomes information overload. You won’t be able to see what needs to be done or even remember where you put each sticky note.  How the heck do you expect to find your information easily and quickly if it’s spread out all over the place or buried under other information? 

Alternatives to Sticky Notes

I hate to say it, but unless you can use sticky notes responsibly, which means transferring the information to another system and then throwing the sticky note away, you might have to go cold turkey and opt for a more efficient way of capturing information.

Notebooks:  The simplest solution is to capture all of your information in one place, like a notebook. You’ll feel so much less stressed out when you put your notes in one place. I made a suggestion to a friend years ago to switch from sticky notes to a single notebook. That freed him up so much emotionally and mentally that he found the motivation and energy to organize his entire office on his own.  

Franklin Planners:  If you want to go with a more advanced and even more efficient information capture tool, I HIGHLY reccomend a Franklin planner. Along with just writing things down, it gives you specific strategies to track your information, like tasks and projects, a lot more easily.

3M calendars:  These are great for people with visual organizing styles. 

Mindmeister:  If you really want to go Einstein with your information, use Mindmeister.  Especially, if you are someone like me who has more ideas, inventions and thoughts blazing through your brain then you know what to do with.  It helps to provide the structure necessary to bring your thoughts to life.

So if you are a sticky note addict, it may be time for an intervention if the use of sticky notes is affecting the state of your mind, state of your office and state of your life.  Reach out for help, use one of the systems I mentioned above, and take your life back.

Photo Credit: elitatt, Creative Commons 2.0