Jun 23 2008

Organization with a label printer

Categories: Labeling, Organization and Planning —

I love office toys, and label machines are definitely among the top 5 best ones ever. Label your inbox, outbox, drawers, the office dog, your secretary, you can churn out hundreds of these awesome things quickly and label everything you see! On a more serious note however, you can use label printers for a variety of uses. Let me show you the cool office tool I found first, and them some alternative uses you can use it for.

The Brother QL-570

The one label printer I found exceptionally good was the Brother QL 570. Partly because it looks good, partly because of the ease of exchanging cartridges and partly because there are so many good reviews for this product. You essentially get a mini printer which can print anything in the given space, so you can put it to exceptionally good use.

A huge plus for this label printer is that it has USB connectivity (thus you get more control) for Windows and Mac OS X, so whether you own a Vista, XP or Leopard system, you will happily print away. From the reviews I’ve seen the Leopard version has less features, but no problem in printing.

Your label can be a maximum of 2.4″, and the printing area 2.3″, giving you plenty of space when using it for organization. The quality is 300×600 dpi, which is more than enough for our goals, after all, this isn’t a photo printer. There is only one left in stock, but take a look at the “More buying choices” to the right where you will find alternative sources.

How to use label printing to organize

One great use for a label printer is cataloging. I expect many people have found this use, weather you want to organize your books, CD collection, boxes when moving, your label printer will be an invaluable accessory. Since you have plenty of space, you can include a lot of “metadata” on the label. For books you can indicate if you liked it or not, the contents in a few words, the author, etc. You can add the contents of each box when you move, you can indicate fragile contents, or stuff you will need right away.

You can also print some labels for note taking actually! I stick all sorts of tidbits in my Moleskine for example, and with a label printer you don’t even need any glue, you can just stick it right in. Print out tasks your received from your boss, a shopping list your wife sent you and just stick it in your regular notebook you use for organization. You can also jot down quick notes to remember and stick it on your monitor so you don’t forget to deal with those issues.

If you’re a budding gardener and have a bunch of potted plants, why not create and arboretum? Print each plant’s English name with the Latin name below italicized and your garden will look like a pro arboretum. You can use it this way to label your stamp collection, bug collection, anything you might want to remember the names of.

If you use plastic boxes for storing food you can also stick labels on them so you don’t need to open them to see what’s inside. Your food will stay fresh longer, you’ll keep those odors in, and you can add expiration date to make sure you don’t eat anything after you’re not supposed to.

There are loads and loads of options as you can see, the limit is your imagination. If you use your label maker for a unique task let us know in the comments, we’ll showcase the best ones on the blog front page!

May 20 2008

Staple free stapler

Categories: Office Supplies —

Staple free staplerThis small invention is one of my favorite office supplies and I just have to show you all. It looks good and performs the same function we need without damaging the environment by using hundreds of staples. It also means you never run out of, or have to by staples ever again, not that it’s a budget issue, but I always used to run out at the stupidest times.

The staple free stapler gets the job of stapling done without staples! It manages this by cutting a slot out of the paper and folding it into itself, pretty ingenious if you ask me. It’s also quite cheap at 9 bucks, and saves you a load of money on top of that on staples too.

I know one staple might not sound as anything much, but companies use boatloads of it. A few years back I worked at Shell as a student for a year and I used about one box of staples every week. That’s about 1,000 staples a week. That means that just I would use about 50,000 staples a year, company-wide I am guessing that it’s in the millions. Multiply that by tens of thousands of companies and the number inflates to quite an amount. Although staples are made from stainless steel, which is 100% recyclable I doubt that people recycle staples. In the end, I’m not a huge Greenpeace activist, but if I can do something as simple as this, why not?

Take a look at this video to see exactly how it works and if this doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will.

Apr 16 2008

Organization and Planning with Gmail

Categories: Gmail, Organization and Planning, Software —

I don’t think that Google’s email application, Gmail needs any introduction. The extremely simple, well thought out online email inbox is the new fad, people are throwing out Outlook and Thunderbird and switching to the fully online alternative.

If you want to do the same, there are great tips and tricks you can use to organize yourself with Gmail, you can even use it for planning and keeping track, not just emails. My best advice, if you are not yet familiar with the application is to go ahead and dabble a bit, get used to it, and understand how it works, so you can create some tips and tricks of your own. Until then, here are two things I use, but you can bet you will see many more tips like this here!

Using Gmail for note taking

Have you ever sent an email to yourself by mistake, or deliberately from another PC? Well why not use this trick to create and store memos and notes? You can create a label in Gmail called “notes” for example, and if you have something to write down, just jot it in a new email and send it to yourself. You can also create a filter to put these emails into that category automatically, bypassing the inbox as well. I wrote a guide for something similar on Hack Your Day, take a look. There I describe sending yourself Google Reader stories, but this case is basically the same, so the filters and other stuff work just as well.

Remember that you can use subject fields very well when sending yourself emails. You can create templates based on the type of notes you create. You can create subject lines like “Note - Subject matter” or “Idea - Subject matter”, or even “To do - Subject Matter”. This makes it very simple to search your notes, and also makes them better organized.

Use Gmail for planning

You can use the same “send yourself an email” technique to plan events and projects. Create an email with a note (or you can use an email sent by someone else) and reply to it (to yourself). Using the reply, you can update the project or event with new details, finished items and so on. I think it’s easier to group ideas for projects and follow-ups for that than tasks, but to-do lists can be done too.

This is also a cool way to collaborate, since you can always send these replies to someone else as well, who can in turn reply as well. Since Gmail bunches emails in conversations, this will give you a convenient overview of your emails and the status of your project or plan.

Apr 14 2008

31 day deluxe bill organizer

Categories: Desktop Accessories, Desktop Organizers, Organization and Planning —

31 day bill organizerHow many of us just keep bills and other important letters in a stack on our desk? I would guess quite a few and for us, here comes the 31 day deluxe bill organizer. This stylish oak desktop stand has 31 slots to store your bills in, great for keeping track of when to pay them. It also has a small drawer in the bottom where you can keep a pen or two, some paper, paper clips and whatnot.

Alternative Organization and Planning

This accessory could have an awesome use, doubling as a scheduling tool. You can use large index cards to write down appointments, things to do and other stuff for the month, and just drop it in the correct slot. You can use it as 31 day planner, if you’re on the 6th for example, the first five slots should be empty, awaiting tasks for the first five days of next month. You can store specialized index cards you create in the bottom, or keep a monthly goal list there as a means of reference. In short, this can be used really well for month to month organization and planning, as well as bill payment tracking.