Well, helloooo, Posse! This is NOT a perfume post (just sayin’), though on this rainy day I am reveling in Gin Blossom by Love and Toast (Margot Elena, who appears to be no relation to JCE, alas (can you imagine that bloodline?). Rather, it’s a Musing of sorts about Old School communication and data storage. If you have no idea what I might be talking about, feel free to stick around and learn some history. Otherwise… GET OFF MY LAWN!
I got a call this morning from our local mechanic, looking for the number of my gal pal (he’s working on her truck); seems his phone has decided to purge (!) phone numbers that haven’t been used in eons! We chatted about the Skynet-ness of it for a minute and he said “I told my wife I need to get a Rolodex as backup, just in case”.
Rolodex
AND GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
He’s 47.
I was visiting a friend this past week and was startled to find her using a Franklin Covey planner (!) to keep track of her house building project!
She’s 56.
I am ‘in alt’ as Miss Austen would say. Nope, I am NOT a technophobe – I wear my phone OUT with photos and texting, etc – but I do have Luddite tendencies and I like trying to keep at least some semblance of control over how I use technology – and how it uses me. Also, writing (pen to paper) is said to help continue the constant rewiring of your brain, keeping it sharper and your memory more intact and connected to everyday tasks, more than tapping intel into your phone. It is said. We’ll see. I am not going to be writing my Posse posts by hand (and certainly not with a quill pen, though it sounds romantic (for about 32 seconds). But for lists and notes? Writing is, for me, the way to go!
I remember when Filofax was all the rage and we all carried our heavy zippered cases with notes scribbled on every page of every working day. I still have mine – all of them – and it’s a totally different feeling to leaf through them (as opposed to scrolling through my phone). Names and numbers that once meant everything to me (or at least to my wallet). Business cards! stuck in the pockets. I am starting a new reno project and I think I’ll press one of them into service (as with dresses, it’s always fabulous IF THEY HAVE POCKETS! and they (or at least the refillable pages) do!
Oooh! After The Filofax Years I graduated to a way less cumbersome setup – the Mead Five Star 5×7″ notebook WITH POCKETS! It served me well for several decades and I figure y’all can stack the scores of notebooks as my funeral pyre – I don’t toss them because evvvery now and then I’ll need to find some intel… and booyaka! there it is, hidden in one of the notebooks (which are stored chronologically (or thereabouts). It has pockets!!! did I tell you?
It has POCKETS!!!
Update: I decided against using one of my old Filofaxes because I needed some flexibility and a bigger size, so I grabbed a 9×13″ planner with room for notes! It’s big enough that I can clip papers to it (it’s not (or rarely) going anywhere out of my house ). I’m loving it – though … full disclosure here: I’m still using the living daylights out of my phone (calendar, notes, alarms, etc) – I am just taking an odd pleasure in coming back to the planner and transferring all that data into it!
Soooo… what about you? Are you a writer/scribbler? Full on Phone? Or a mashup ? My friends and I (all of a Certain Age) are intrigued by the number of much-younger people turning to Old School tech! What’s next? Rotary phones en vogue again?
N.b. I was glancing through my mother’s old address book (which she used as a Filofax of sorts) and came upon this letter from a neighbor who’d recently moved to MN – reading the lovely, chatty missive brought back so many memories, one of them being the indignation my mother felt at being sent a TYPED! letter! O, the humanity!
I wonder what my mother would make of current technology?
Fully digital here. Remember Palm organisers? You wrote on the screen with a stylus. I got gifted one back in the last century. I was hooked as an early adopter. My life has now lived in the Fruit Cloud since its introduction.
A photographer friend sends me her wildlife calendar every year. That is hung in the kitchen with DH’s appointments on it.
DH uses a tiny pocket diary but chucks it in January every year.
Cards & aide memoires live in my wallet.
I’m pretty much all typing/computer, including my calendar. The fact that I have terrible handwriting probably contributes. Even things like grocery lists get typed into my phone. The exception is things like thank you notes, condolences, birthday wishes etc. which get hand-written on my engraved stationery (or a goofy / NSFW card, depending.)
And T/Rexes!! Don’t forget the Thunder Lizards!!!!!
Great topic! I am a hybrid user like you. It took me years to be convinced by DH to start using the digital calendar function on my phone so we could both see each other’s upcoming obligations — now I love it. But I still have a wall calendar hanging up in the kitchen that I write things on, too. It’s the belt-and-suspenders method I guess. I cannot, truly cannot, sit through any kind of meeting, class or seminar without taking notes or minutes. I did it for years as a student, then as an office worker, so it’s ingrained in me. I’m a big post-it note user too. File folders, yes. Not one but two desks. Yeesh. “Tell me you’re a nerd without telling me you’re a nerd!” In college I used to write loooong letters to my boyfriend, my best friend, and my parents all the time. No longer.
Omgosh! Letters! I remember the excitement of getting a letter from my boyfriend who was a few years older and in grad school – like little presents which, I suppose, they were. I would put it in my pocket and not open it until I’d gotten all my work done!
I am a mixed bag when it comes to organising. I actually do have a Filofax in which I replenish the week at a glance pages every year. I need to see what’s going on in my life on paper. The Filofax lives on my desk next to the laptops. Sort of pride of place… as one of the laptops contains my budget excel out a year.
But, I also used google maps to plan out destinations (did this for each day in Paris). But, again, I have a small travel notebook which comes on trips into which I mark down some of the things that are in my Filofax and also note down when I’ve taken my meds. Otherwise I forget. which isn’t good.
As to letters, until she got sick my mother wrote to me and then me and my husband once a week on her typewriter. I have most of those letters in one place but every once in a while I will be sorting something (books, etc) and one will drop out. Which is both incredible and bittersweet. She wrote great letters.
The perfect mashup of Practical Tech and Old School Elegance
And stumbling across old letters is both lovely and bittersweet
(and once again I am spam)
I love using planners. I have one for work and one for my stuff. Plus it has a notepad and a pen. All of which are easier to get to and faster to use then opening an app. I even use a fountain pen in them.
I agree that a notepad and pen is much easier and faster than opening an app so that’s what I do.
Using a fountain pen is so cool!
I’m spam again too.
Spam today…Quing tomorrow
… but we love you, either way!!!
🙂 ditto
Seeee? Tech. Not always your friend.
I was given a fountain pen and absolutely love using it!
When I whip it out In Public, though… such funny looks, as if I’d whipped out … ( insert shrug emoji)
Btw – this is in reply to you, Tom
Heya Musette,
I think the youngsters know what we refuse to acknowledge: machinery is way more fallible than expected.
It took me a couple of decades lugging phone and diary/filofax around in a messenger bag. Now I’m all phone/desktop.
Mum had kept all my diaries and publicity in a couple of huge bags. Sadly they were both lost in the move from the familial home. None of them backed up to anything.
Portia xx
DagNABBIT! I’ll bet those bags contained some INCREDIBLE memories!
And I mos’ def do not consider machinery infallible, which is why I tend to write stuff down. The insane ‘conversations’ I have had with A’lexa are testament to that!!!LOL!
That’s hilarious.
I don’t do Alexa but Jin LOVES AI.
I’ve tried with Alexa but my accent is apparently impenetrable to it. (I didn’t think I had one..)
I enjoy handwriting notes and lists and I love my pretty wall calendar with appointments written in. But my phone and computer still get plenty of use.
Sounds like you’re a Mashup Girl, just like me!
And… oh! the joy of receiving a handwritten note!
I adore getting handwritten letters. My dearly departed BFF was the queen of letters. She used Paper by the Pound in colors, wrote in her extravagant Palmer Method script, then scented them. Loved getting them when we lived 3000 miles apart.
Oh and I am big on “Thank You” notes. Never pre-printed (shudder) and hand written. Two lines is enough. Makes people so happy.
It really does!
::and thank you for writing thank yous!!!::