Post-it notes for life

I’m sitting here wondering what to write. Somewhere on my desk back in London is a small yellow post-it note with an ongoing list of ideas I’ve had. Fun things, boring things, things I felt I might be able to string together more than a paragraph about. If ever I find myself on a desert island I need an inexhaustible supply of post-it notes. I use them at work too. Many senior people walk around with big diary-style notebooks; I am not one of them. I carry a small stack of post-it notes and a pencil. These form ongoing to-do lists just as they do at home. On them I write things I have to do that arise in meetings, things that I am going to get other people to do, questions I am going to ask people when I get back to my desk. The beauty is the size. It encourages brevity, it limits the amount of take-aways. No, sorry, can’t take on any more work, my post-it note is full. See? The best bit is like any to-do list. The end. When all things on it are crossed off it can be peeled off, scrumpled up, and thrown in the bin. A pristine sheet awaits. Endless possibilities.

This dates from 2016. I am on the road currently and this is the only example of the many thousands of post-it notes I appear to have ever photographed and saved down. I have no idea why. Perhaps it has featured before?

Anyway, my random scribbles are in London and I am on a plane, wondering what to write. This is how I was going to pass the time on a four hour flight to the Aegean. It is half term and Mrs L are off on another little jaunt, this time to Santorini, a place neither of us have ever been. It looks spectacular, even if the weather forecast is looking decidedly dodgy. Our room is one of those that looks out on the caldera, facing west. The sunsets are said to be magnificent however at this point it is questionable whether we will see the sun at all, let alone it setting. And this is why I have my laptop with me, in case we get stuck in our hotel room while a storm rages outside. I felt I might as well make some progress towards my annual blog total which is limping towards a hundred. I may or may not have mentioned this before but I get a sense of satisfaction from getting to three figures every year. I missed one year, didn’t realise until it was too late. It has annoyed me ever since.

Brazil helped a great deal, I got 11 posts out of it. Nice. As regular reader will be aware I write in fits and starts, as the mood takes me. A post every 3-4 days isn’t sustainable, I find it much easier to do nothing for weeks and then be dragged back to the keyboard by something akin to guilt. Actually it isn’t even that really, I don’t know what it is. I discovered long ago that there was no point fighting a reluctance to write. Just leave it, do something else, it will come back. It always does. Just as it is guaranteed to disappear again. A cycle of sorts, but one without a discernible rhythm.

Anyhow, with “par” at 3.65 I find myself at the end of October sitting just above 4. Earlier in the summer it wasn’t looking too good, closer to 4.5, but some semblance of coherence returned and now, with two months to run, I feel it’s recoverable. Twenty something posts are all that is needed. Doesn’t sound very much does it? All I need is a vein of form and I’ll be there in no time. And you, the poor reader, well you’re along for the ride wherever that may lead. Today it is about post-it notes, or at least that is how it started. Would you have predicted that?

I am sometimes surprised that I don’t get suggestions. Then again this is not YouTube, where every video no matter how short seems to contain multiple entreaties to “let me know in the comments below, if you enjoyed this video leave a like, and remember to subscribe to the channel for more content on X Y Z”. What is amazing is that this actually happens, screens and screens of it sometimes. I suppose that these are generally far more targeted, channels on specific topics that people care passionately about and are hugely invested in. That's not the case here, too varied, too unpredictable even though it isn't really. This must be something like the twentieth rehash of the "urge to write/why can't I write?" theme. Maybe if I stuck to birds? Hey, what?! I was trying to find something I'd written the other day and used a web search  - Google is actually far better at finding something specific than the search function within Blogger. When I googled whatever it was the little AI summary you get first up these days described Wansteadbirder as a travel blog.... Maybe these bots are more discerning that we think? Anyway, maybe if the scope were narrower. Then again I still think the issue is the length. Takes too long. What, five minutes? Ugh, I don't have that sort of time!! People think they're too busy. Only they're not. We have all just been conditioned over the last decade or so to have the attenion span of gnats. And then there's the format. Words on a page. Jeez, how antiquated. With videos the watcher can be getting along with something else at the same time. Multi-tasking whilst only half paying attention, an advantage (well, a disadvantage really) that the written word does not have. 

All that said I would likely ignore suggestions; I am very stubborn. What do I think about such and such? Who cares?! No no, I will just write about my various niche hobbies, just I have largely done for over fifteen years. Makes me happy, scratches some inner itch that I can’t explain. Words pour out, just like today in 12F. Paragraphs and paragraphs, the search for brevity goes on. The antithesis of the post-it note in many ways.