Quinn Cook

i keep a pad of sticky notes on my bedside, just in case i need to write something down in the dark as i’m falling asleep, or before i forget it when i wake up. a few feet over i have a whole collection of them: dozens, in various sizes, but mostly yellow (aside from some misguided greens) and stacked high next to a handful index and catalogue cards.

sticky notes are probably one of the greatest inventions sitting on my desk (high praise, depending on your perspective, when they sit next to a Pentax 6×7 and a Smith Corona—laptop be damned). a neat stack of easy-on-the-eye yellow cream paper, three inches to a side, backed with a half-inch of low-tack reusable adhesive. stunning.

i take them everywhere, too. there are a few pads in my backpack, usually one in my pocket, sometimes one or two stuck to the back of my phone or in the pages of a book (when i’m too scared to actually write in it, or my notes don’t fit in the margins). many an essay has been planned, leatherworking pattern conceived, and question posed on these little gems.

i believe i have nailed down, almost to a T, why sticky notes are so useful to me: size.

the first, more trivial result of their compact form factor, is portability. the fact that they fit in my wallet, or on my phone, or really anywhere one might want to carry a receptacle for the written word means that i always have one at hand. why do i use so many? because i always have one to use. why carry them? because i use so many that i need to have one at hand.

more interestingly, though, is that having only nine square inches lowers the expectation that i write anything of length or significance. it’s enough space to transcribe a quote, or flesh out an idea to the extent i’ll actually remember it, but not so much that i feel stupid writing only a name or just a few words, as i would seeing a single sentence floating on the vast expanse of letter paper.

this total disinhibition means that i write down anything and everything that comes to mind, or meanders by in conversation. sometimes, the act of writing it down stimulates me further, and i end up writing two or three follow-ups on the formerly-negligible idea. more often, i will stick that single sentence up on the wall and let it marinate. that is, i will forget about it until i let my eyes wander over my notes a few days later, and be caught again by this amazing, wonderful, fantastic idea that i just had another thought about and need to write down. cue the next sticky note.

compare this to one’s phone. i won’t do a whole holier-than-thou, phones bad, shame on anyone who doesn’t adhere to my fabricated moral rigor, self-righteous schtick—mostly because i also write a lot of ideas in my notes app. but even then, i take the time to transcribe back into sticky notes (or even a full sheet of paper, if i’m feeling dangerous), and i think its worth considering why.

to borrow a phrase, phones are the subjects, objects, and means of consumption. in reverse order:

we most frequently think of phones (smart phones, mind you) as the means of consumption; it is the route through which we receive calls, watch videos, listen to music, etc., etc,. etc.

and yet. might we also consider the phone itself as the object of consumption? yes, we might be consuming instagram or youtube or email or whatever sub-partition on it, but, at some point, we’re really just consuming the phone. it is screen time, or phone time, or rotting time, not instagram time, nor youtube time, nor email time. a great many people pick up their phones just to pick it up; it’s ingrained in their body to reach for their phone—not thinking of whatever app they open next.

and so. the phone becomes the subject in this relationship. first we consume through it, then we consume it, then it consumes us. it is consumption every bit as detrimental as the tubercular sense of the word. i won’t press this point, because it’s annoying to hear

and sometimes, that kind of consumption might be okay. but, when i’m trying to write something to develop an idea or lay a plan, my goal is to create, and consumption is antithetical to creation. thus, phone notes are antithetical to my goal. they might get the job done in the short term, but master’s tools, master’s house: the phone will never be the right tool.

in the end, it works out for both the initial transcription of ideas and my actual implementation of them. as i hinted at earlier, having sticky notes strewn about my wall means i can “recall” my thoughts instantly and spontaneously—and, sometimes, my thoughts recall me. i have digital notes, archives, backups upon backups (including photos of physical media), but ultimately they end up as, what John Mayers refers to in California Typewriter, “high concept trash.” one does not stumble across their old notes, nor do they have any particular allure that would pull one to them. no one i know regularly looks through old folders on their computer, or plugs in hard drives just to flip through files.

with sticky notes, one does exactly that. if i want to make space for a new sticky note, i must rearrange the others in at least a somewhat sensible schema (thank goodness for low-tack reusable adhesive), and so am forced to engage with my older (perhaps neglected) notes. further, if i want to recall something, i know exactly where to find my old words; i did this just the other day to find a specific set of measurements i needed for my leatherworking project. a friend once told me that it may cause me to remember where certain information is, rather than the content itself, but, so long as i use physical media, there is no concern for me. digital storage, on the other hand, has no spatial salience.

hence sticky notes.