Sticky Notes, Day Planners, PDAs, Smartphones

Son_of_Perdition

Senior Member
The evolution of time wasters. I remember back in the 80's that the going rage was them padded notebooks called The Franklin Day Planner. The company I worked for issued one to everyone working in administration or if your supervisor thought they would make you more productive you ended up carrying them wherever you ventured. They also had training sessions so that you streamlined your daily schedule.

You were to jot down events, meetings, budgets, bathroom breaks,,,etc. You had goals and projects to plot and forward to the next day if you failed to complete them, shudder the thought! You had pages of addresses, phone nrs, and birth dates. I remember they would be open on someone's desk to record their every thought. Mine sat home on our bookcase because it looked nice with it's brown padded cover. I had some notes but no goals entered. I even had a few phone numbers, mostly forgotten unpaid bills. I guess because I never took it serious I never realized my true potential.

Then along came the PDA (Blackberry,,,etc) so you could spend more time electronically noting all the important events and little things. Some even had shopping lists from the wife to pick up on the way home. I usually spent my valuable time playing the few games that came loaded. I thought it was cool to actually access my home wifi with it, but whenever I wanted to browse the internet I went to the command center that housed my oversized 'Freecell, Tetris, Pipe Dream' game playing desktop that looked as if it was on life support with all the wires hanging from it, while my PDA battery was running low.

No wonder we are so enamored with our smartphones today, they are just the next generation of time wasting chunks of electrical hogs to come down the pike. I'm not knocking the real value that cell phones are to society but I ask you is anyone that important to need to be constantly checking their texts, facebook, twitter and other social network for updates to inane salutations from their group of friends. I like a little quiet time to sit and ponder what a small splash I've actually made in history.
 

Oh, no! You've brought back my DayTimer nightmares!

When I got my first one I was working as a safety manager at a large company in Trexlertown, PA. Just up the road a few blocks was the factory and distribution center for the DayTimer, so of course that was what we were issued.

Black-Day-Timer.jpg

I hated those things! I'm an on-the-fly / off-the-cuff type, so chaining me to that little leather taskmaster was pure hell. I did a lot better with Post-It notes and odd bits of restaurant napkins.

Never had a PDA - I went straight from the Post-It notes to a "portable" computer - upon whose case I plastered even more Post-Its. :p
 
There was even a movie I watched about someone losing his day planner in an airport. 'Taking Care of Business' made in 1990 from IMDB.
 

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