thinkie - a more creative pen
I typically write with a pencil when I’m thinking, and with a pen when I’m doing.
When I’m in think mode, the pencil lets me erase stupid thoughts or simply those which are replaced a few moments later by others.
When I’m doing, I just want stuff to hit the paper and stick. I’m not interested in editing, altering, or thinking. I just want to get that work down on paper. Smudgy pencil is no use, you need the high contrast, crisp lines of a pen. Think how wishy washy gaping void would look drawn in pencil. Not all of us can get straight to the finished article though. I need a pen that allows for correction.
Introducing the thinkie pen.
The thinkie assists and even drives the assessment of creative sketching. I sit down to draw a mouse with my thinkie. I draw the mouse. I don’t like the mouse, so I draw another mouse next to it. I like that mouse better. But I draw a third mouse, just to be sure. By this point I decide I actually prefer mouse 1. All I do to lock mouse one in place is mark over it with the other end of the pen- fixing the ink. If I don’t do that the lines will disappear after 5 minutes. I ignore the other 2 mice, they disappear. I have one left. My favourite mouse.
This drives an assessment of which parts of the page I want to keep - but avoids the rash instant deletion associated with the pencil / eraser combo. Mouse 1 would have died if I’d used a pencil.
It also assists with time management. I know most of my ideas in any one area will come out in the first 5 minutes. Beyond that I may well just be messing about with the same few thoughts. The fade would warn me to move on to something else.
The thinkie could be sold as a sudoku pen. I can imagine the panic rising when trying to complete the puzzle in 5 minutes before their initial numbers start to disappear. Perhaps the ink could go down on paper blue, then turn black before disappearing, so you had that visual queue to ‘lock’ the thought.
Marketing could center around ‘locking thoughts’ and escaping the pencil tyranny. I’m not sure of the chemistry involved, but I’m sure it’s possible.
Thanks for the CC photography to http://flickr.com/photos/balakov/253548664/
As ever, if you know of such a pen let me know.
Popularity: 12% [?]
moleskine indexing hack tool
I love my moleskine notebook, it just feels nice. I need a way to structure my books, and get to sections quickly but I hate those sticky tabs GTD addicts use to organise them. They just get bent, or pushed out of place, or lose their stick. I carry my notebook in my bag, my pocket, in my cycling backpouch. Anywhere. Stuff just gets bashed.
I would much prefer a simple cut out ‘inverted tab’ like you get in old diaries to mark the months. A tool to achieve these would be amazingly useful, like a mutant stapler or nail clipper. To test the idea I got out the trusty Stanley knife:
The squared notebook gives a nice line to follow for the cuts. Any tool should aim to exactly fit these lines, just to enhance the feel of the finished tab.
The very square edge is a little open to becoming frayed and bashed, so the tool should be a curved die giving a nicely rounded corner to the tabs. Either the square shallow tab as shown here, or a deeper semi circular version would be nice. I clipped only 5 pages at the start of a section.
The side view shows the general effect. These inverted tabs are very easy for your thumb to locate. I’ve used them to split one notebook into 6 separate sections, for separate projects, all along the vertical side. For a more sophisticated setup a mix of tabs on the top, bottom and edge could separate 3 different types of sections, with individual sub sections along the length of the edge.
The 10 minutes playing with the Stanley knife was quite fun, but could grow boring pretty quickly. A tool would be very convenient, the standardised size and shape would be pleasing, and I bet the chances of slicing your finger would be much less than using a knife. I bet every moleskine addict would buy (and receive) several for gifts. Especially if they were a sexy leather bound minitool you could carry in your bag.
My googling hasn’t turned up any suitable tools, there are several die cut tools featured on crafting sites, but none are really small enough, or simple enough to use. If you know of anything suitable please let me know below or at steve@inventoids.com.
As ever, this was initially sketched on the train - before mocking up the output. Here is the sketch:
Popularity: 100% [?]
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Steve invents things while travelling to work on the train. He sketches them in his moleskine notebooks. Instead of actually making them (and becoming a billionaire overnight) he posts them here for the good of mankind.
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