Show Notes
In this episode we were super inspired by a wonderful YouTube video we watched, called "You're Not Lazy : How to live a chaotically organised life" by YouTuber Elizabeth Filips. So, given it summed up how we work, or at least how Rob works (that was why Helen sent him the link to the video), we thought we'd deconstruct the video and share stories about how we operate. And of course, although light on stationery talk, how we use stationery to control our own chaos. In the episode we talk about:
Stationery Stories:Helen has bought some single use ink pens Rob's been boring and bought some coloured paper Helen's daughter is mapping out the entire history of the Roman Empire on a giant sheet of paper. We chat about white boards Helen is retreating to a library
And of course, we deconstruct the messages in Elizabeth's videos and how they resonated so much with us.Fall behind, catch up, move ahead Seven year itch - become 1000% better quickly Optimise for passion Adult brat - talk to yourself properly
Elizabeths video is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2sS00egAzg&t=639s Her channel is here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUFFHXvzAMRSD8Bq4bJppxQ We mention Van Neistat : https://creatorhub.patreon.com/articles/digital-spaghetti-van-neistat We mention Mark Forster : http://markforster.squarespace.com/ Check out the newsletter and website at stationeryfreaks.com Thanks
More from Stationery Freaks
After a few months away — and a very welcome "petition of one" from Stacy in Florida — Rob and Helen are back. Rob has been building a public commonplace: twenty-five years of learning, typed onto index cards (possibly breaking his typewriter in the process) and slowly taking over his studio wall. Helen has been redistributing her notebook collection to a room of grateful authors, which may or may not count as cheating in the great notebook challenge. See original hoarding cast here and a revisit to the challenge of using notebooks here. Along the way: why old publishing offices were built around attention rather than productivity, a typewritten daily planning ritual that's quietly replaced Todoist, the strange magnetism of Midori paper, a beautiful Japanese storage haul, giving away index cards to parents and why the whole world seems to be drifting back to analogue. It's like old times. Which is rather the point of the cast. It's good to be back. If you'd like to see images, and more about the show - check out the companion newsletter to this episode. https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/
In this episode of Stationery Freaks, Rob and Helen dig into the messy, essential world of scrap notes: desk pads, Post-its, legal pads, envelopes, voice memos, and the “grab whatever’s nearby” capture habit. They explore the real question beneath the stationery: what’s the process for turning a quick note into something useful — and what happens when your capture system becomes a pile of open loops.
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