Tricking out the Hipster

Update:
Another template: Chip Cuccio has a 'daily log' template available.
Also: Scott Lawrence also has custom 3x5 card designs

Those who have known me for a long time will remember various pieces of electronics attached to me to keep me organized. Note the lack of quotes around organized; I was a wreck before I decided that it would be beneficial to recall when my finals were. The ability to fiddle with various bits of gadgetry contributed to my change into a productive, reliable person...

Years have passed and I have matured to the point where I no longer need the lure of electronics to motivate myself into remembering things. The headaches of batteries, the fragility of the hardware, the inflexiblity of the medium have all managed to surpass the usefulness of PDA gadgetry.

Enter the Hipster PDA. Not only does it solve the problems above, it's easily an order of magnitude cheaper. After experiementing with it for some time, I was sold. However, the binder clips proved to be uncomfortable.

A more sensible man would have switched to rubber bands - the gadgeteer in me had to have the Levenger Pocket Briefcase. I even coughed up the three extra bucks to get it embossed.

However, this opened up another can of worms. It came with a sampler set of premium index cards that you could purchase customized with your logo, name, what have you. On the whole, I found them to be less useful than the standard ones that you buy at the grocery store, except for the grid/graph paper ones. I used those right away and pined for more.

While staring at them in the Levenger catalog, I fought an internal battle over purchasing their cards. On the 'pro' side:

• They were pretty cool, with my imagined name at the top.
• You just can't buy these at stores. My efforts to ad-lib a grid with a pen over the existing lines was complete crap.

On the 'con' side:

• My wife would kill me. $40 for 500?

...and then lightning struck, though in hindsight it was like a Family Guy-knockoff.

1. I want index cards with a grid printed on them
2. I have a computer and a printer

Hey! I could... uh...
No! Wait! I've got it-no...
Ummm... Cards... Computer... There's something...

Eventually I put two and two together and realized that I could print my own cards. After reading the printer docs to see if it supported 3x5 cards (No mention, thanks HP!), I checked the computer...

Bingo!

Voila! Now I can move on to other things.

Hardly. Suddenly blessed with the simple power to create a grid, I immediately imagined dozens of other cards that I could print...

I created a "Confidential" card.

(png | pdf)

The printing is easily light enough to be written over and not interfere.

The Levenger sample pack came with a card with the calendars from 2004 and 2005 printed on it. While it was handy, if tiny, for reference, it was not useful for scheduling or doodling. Enter April 2005...

(png | pdf)

The back has vertically-oriented lines for writing notes or what have you. I'll have to do this for every month coming up, but since it's a paste from cal there's nothing to it.

It just occurred to me to print the calendars on the back of lined index cards. Much easier than creating my own backs. Oh well, next month.

More? Of course!...

I'll explain these in a second:

(dont-be-afraid png | dont-be-afraid pdf | look_at_order png | look_at_order pdf )

Let's call them "Brainstorm" cards. They have no real purpose other than to provide a gentle kick toward creativity. The phrases are all taken from Oblique Strategies, a classic collection of such things. They are printed very light, to the point of being almost unreadable. (They're certainly difficult to photograph.) I've uploaded only two of the dozen I've created so far, simply because I'm lazy.

Anything could really be printed here, from "Hang in there, baby!" to "There are starving children in Thailand studying programming right now, so get your ass in gear", as long as you find it inspirational.

Just don't let your creativity with the cards distract you from the creativity on the cards, if you know what I mean. Take it from a victim.