: Index card system to track daily, weekly, and monthly routines This system is a mini tickler file system. But rather than tracking things through a year, this one …
: Reader Question 9: How long do you keep your notes? Hi Anna, I recently discovered your site, via the Plain Text Project, and I am so glad I did! I feel …
: Digital is Ephemeral I grew up in a rural area with frequent power outages. Because electricity wasn’t a given, …
: Wondering how to find stuff in your paper notebooks, send reminders to Future You, and check out …
: Reader Question 8: How do I handle a plethora of post-it notes? “Hello! I don’t remember how I found Analog Office but I love it. It’s so comforting to read …
: Handwriting Equals Thinking: Or, Why I Use a Paper Planner The virtual world is a disembodied one, and promotes the lie that we do not need our bodies to …
: Nice article for all who love planners, A Short History of the Daily Planner, by Jillian Hess. Hess …
: Out With the Old, In With the New Ahhhhhhh…. the most wonderful time of the year at the Analog Office. Opening up the new …
: The Simplest Paper Filing System What? You don’t love filing? You want to find your household papers but you don’t want …
: Bankers Boxes: Use Them, Love Them, Don't Let Them Mildew Here at Analog Office World Headquarters, we excitedly passed around CJ Chilvers’ essay on the …
: Keep a Checklist Notebook Record your processes into lists. Do this for Future You, when Future You is tired or distracted. It …
: Reader Question 7: Can you do bullet journal style planning without all the artwork? “Hey, Anna, I’m sold on the Wonderland books. Thinking of getting the all in one so I can have …
: Johnny.Decimal and Me: Why I Use a Formal Digital Filing System Instead of Relying on Search A reader asked me why I use the Johnny.Decimal filing system for my digital folders. He said he had …
: Assateague Lighthouse Keeper’s Logbook, 1889. Museum of Chincoteague Island. Entries include …
: Serious Analog for Serious Conditions: Medical Treatment Trackers and Planners Just came back from a trip to see my parents, who live about 300 miles away from me. My father has …
: A Temporal Filing System for Bills, Statements, and Other Information that Expires I actually should be paying bills right now, but instead I’m preferring the procrastiductivity …
: Reader Question 6: Help, I'm writing in five notebooks daily, how do I pare down? “Over the course of this year I have somehow accumulated five notebooks I’m writing in daily. …
: Reader Question 5: How Do You Function in a Crisis? “How about a post on functioning when (stuff) hits the fan, an unexpected crisis that fills your …
: On Tomoe River Paper Planners, Bullet Journaling, and Aesthetic Dissonance Excellent post on bullet journals from @nofars at which is part of a series on planners. I …
: Reader Question 4: For Daily and Weekly Planning, Do You Use Open and Closed Lists? Hey Anna, In the post about weekly planning, you showed your weekly task list, but not a daily list. …
: Lumpers vs Splitters: How Many Paper Notebooks Do You Use at One Time? I hesitate to even post this. Feelings are strong. Emotions run high. I’m a peaceable woman. I …
: Reader Question 3: How Do You Use Paper to Plan Your Week, Without Getting a Jump Scare from the Week After That? Most excellent: a reader question today! “Hello Anna. I love your blog. I am a computer …
: Use Symbols to Help You Scan Your Paper Task List: the Dash Plus System For a few years I used Ryder Carroll’s bullet journal system, and the bullets — the symbols — were …
: The Life-Changing Magic of Keeping a File Index Filing systems for personal, household files don’t get much love from people who write about …
: Why Have a Values Plan? annahavron.com Sharing the talk I gave at Micro Camp last week. Bonus: Find …
: This Week I Learned That I Need to Print an Emergency Travel Document The other day my father, a retired systems engineer in his eighties, was hospitalized for emergency …
: Writing in the Shower Woohoo! I’m so excited to be giving a talk tomorrow (Saturday, May 20) at micro.camp! Today, …
: But Can Your Typewriter Do This? An unusually busy week for me this week, so I’m sharing this wonderful video of the Iceland …
: Office Toy: Book Holders If you regularly transform analog information into digital information by typing something into your …
: Too Much Information: Why Personal Knowledge Management Is Hard Many people call themselves disorganized when instead what they are doing is a hard thing. It is a …
: Halsted's Beautifully Human Habit Tracker Isn’t this habit tracker beautiful? Halsted, whose site is cygnoir.net, kindly allowed me to share …
: Analog in New York City Today at the Analog Office, we’re doing a lot of laundry after a trip to New York City. Traces …
: Thinking is Messy Robin Rendle says, mess up your books when you read them. I say, mess up your “good” …
: Reader Question 2: Notes on Paper, Notes in Apps, Here, There, and Everywhere, Should I Just Give Up and Accept the Chaos? Very cool! We have another reader question today! A reader asks, “I like to write all sorts of …
: 19th Century ChatGPT? A Book of Sample Letters for Common Business and Social Situations Well… common situations almost 200 years ago. Sparked by a discussion around AI and …
: Scratch Paper, Scrap Paper: Using Your Paper Again, and Again Back in ancient times, social scientists shot down the common supposition that we would all be …
: Reader Question 1: Paper as a Read Later App? How exciting! Someone has asked me a question! Here it is: “Do you ever print online articles on …
: From Piles to Files: Tracking Workflow Status With Current, Future, Pending Trays A good filing system records your decisions about what you plan to do next with a given document. …
: Experiencing organizational difficulties? Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Handwriting Help When I started using notebooks after years of keyboarding, I immediately re-discovered how illegible …
: From Paper Piles to Paper Files: Action Folders Although the Analog Office strives to move at a stately pace rather than a hurried one, sometimes …
: Mess Up Your Good, Premium, Luxury Notebooks You know the ones: the ones with the creamy paper, the ones with the little envelope built into the …
: Enter the Date on ALL Your Notes Get into the habit of writing the date next to your notes, and you may not need to bother with …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Create a Hub Journal A hearty thank you to Loura for allowing the Analog Office to share this photo of her marvelous …
: Let’s say you make an interest grid and still can’t decide. Here’s another way to …
: Make an Interest Grid to Figure Out What You Want to Focus On Perhaps you, like me, have far more that you would like to do, than you realistically have time for. …
: Pre-printed, Blank Postcards Await Your Imagination …well, well, well! I did an ink test for a set of pre-cut, pre-printed blank postcards. I’m testing …
: Keep a "WHERE Is It" File You can make life much easier for yourself with a few personally curated documents, like keeping a …
: For Easy Reference, Enter the Date on ALL of Your Handwritten Notes Get into the habit of writing the date next to your notes, and you may not need to bother with …
: All About Tickler Files: Leveling Up Your 43 Folders Game A tickler file is an analog reminder system: a way to deliver documents and information to your …
: Speaking of rubber stamps, the chicken stamp, featured in my previous post, and so many more, are …
: More on Custom Rubber Stamps Custom rubber stamps feel right at home in analog offices. Some of them also like to mark up paper …
: For Habit Tracking and Health Improvement, Try a Paper Planner Instead of an App I know many people who love using apps to track their health, including a relative who used his …
: Thanks to @manton for creating such wonderful bookshelves! The Analog Office is now sharing a …
: If You Want to Write and Publish More, Use a Paper Notebook to Capture Your Ideas In the fall of 2020, I started a blog. I write a lot for work, but found myself still restless. I …
: New Year’s Resolution: Make Information Accessible, for Those Who Survive You Hey, let’s talk about death again! This is an anxiety-producing topic, and I am sorry for that. My …
: Useful Notes Layouts: Use a Topics / Thoughts Log, for Meetings with Lots of New Information Think of meetings or appointments where you are receiving the proverbial fire-hose of new …
: Office Toy: Paper Clips Deep thoughts about paper clips today. I rarely use paper clips the way they are marketed to be …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Tag a Few Notes on the Fly, with Fore-Edge Indexing Gaaaah, numbering notebook pages. How tedious is that? Maybe your idea of fun is not sitting around …
: Still experiencing some newsletter hiccups: newsletter subscribers, here is that 6-second video, …
: Paper Checklists Are Saving My Marriage Right Now For the first time since before the pandemic, we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a lot of …
: The Home Paper Shredder I'm Keeping First off, apologies to newsletter subscribers: Due to technical difficulties, last Friday’s …
: Home Shredder: The One Office Toy I've Kicked Out of My Office Forever One of the joys of blogging is hearing from thoughtful readers, like one who shared a post from a …
: A Life in Pocket Notebooks The parents of a young farmer — who died much too soon — told me how hard it was to go over and …
: Office Toy: The Letter Opener If you love objects that combine beauty and utility, this is as good a reason as any to cultivate …
: Office Toy: Adding Machine, and How — and Why — To Use One Do you manage the household budget? Organize the household taxes? Maybe even have your own business? …
: Note to Self: Over-organizing Is a Great Way to Procrastinate Over-organizing is a great way to procrastinate. It gives your anxiety the sense that it is doing …
: Pssst: Fountain Pens and Inks Can Double as Art Supplies If you do venture into the world of fountain pens and inks, justify the cost by declaring yourself …
: Fountain Pens Are Physically Easier To Write With, Than Modern Pens If you think with paper and write a lot, consider using a fountain pen*. Modern pens strain your …
: How a Developer Uses Index Cards to Organize His Day Indie Hackers recently highlighted how founder Joe Masiolli organizes himself with index cards. …
: Simple Tools Foster Complex Uses Been thinking about an observation from @dwalbert, about a castle in France being built using only …
: Office Toy: Custom Rubber Stamps Analog offices cry out for rubber stamps, mostly because it is fun to use them. But they also earn …
: Scratch That Itch So many Zoom meetings this week! So much screen time! So much information to write up and organize …
: A Paper Zettelkasten System for Nonfiction Writers Okay, this post is serious inside baseball. If you’re interested in: A) keeping a paper …
: Working Papers: A Physicist, a Filmmaker, and Their Thinking Tools Tactile systems help people think. Richard Feynman, Physicist “You will have to brace …
: For me, this week’s felt like five or six weeks all at once; and it’s only Thursday! …
: I Am Not Buying That Rocker Blotter. No. I Am Not. A public service announcement for fountain pen friends: one piece of blotter paper might last you 20 …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Tracking Your Topics Over Non-consecutive Pages and Over Multiple Notebooks Let’s say you have a notebook, with numbered pages, where you jot down your thoughts about various …
: Office Toy: The Silver Sharpie Pen Many useful plastic, metal, and fabric objects are made in dark colors, often black.* Silver Sharpie …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Morning Pages I’ve been a practitioner of Julia Cameron’s morning pages for many years. (See reference notes below …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Capture Your Ideas with a Capture Notebook My daughter worked at an entymology department when she was in college. Her job was to feed and …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: How to Set Up a Table of Contents or an Index Let’s nerd out about the difference between a table of contents and an index; and how we can use …
: Office Toy: The Automatic Numbering Machine Okay. So. This truly is an office toy for me. I didn’t NEED one of these. But when I was a child, I …
: Take Useful Notes: Meetings and Appointments I use a paper notebook for meeting notes because I can’t focus on meetings if I use an electronic …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Track Random Information with the Quadrant System The Quadrant system allows you to set up a paper notebook so that you can record random-ish bits of …
: Why Use Paper Notebooks? Like many people who love paper, I have waaay too many notebooks. (Yet also, never enough.) At some …
: Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: Set the Table Way back in the 1900s, I did survey research. A major principle in designing a questionnaire is to …
: Office Toy: The Gen-X Slow Motion Recycle Bin. Whatever. I am artificially organized, not naturally organized; and it still gives me a frisson to find my …
: How to Instantly Cut Down Your Smartphone Use and Free Your Mind for Other Things Have you ever noticed when you check your phone for the time, you check a whole lot of other things …
: Find Your Tax-related Papers Quickly Remember the file jacket? Two of mine are on permanent assignment. They alternate, depending on …
: Tame Your Paper Piles with Stacking Trays Behold! I give you the Tower o’ Power, or, nearly all of my current office-related projects right …
: Reasons Why I Love My Landline Marketers, u can’t text this. Nobody has to charge it. No pop-up notifications. And if I unplug it, …
: Office Toy: the File Jacket Problem: You’ve got a little flurry of randomly-sized papers related to an upcoming project or …
: Hey, Let’s Talk About Death annahavron.com
: The office product testing team at Analogoffice.net World Headquarters inspects a new device. …
: Keep a Canonical Address Book OMG!!! Google and Siri know SO! MANY! PEOPLE! They know all the people my husband and I have ever …
: Office Toy: the Security Stamp A security stamp blacks out printed information. Why would we want to do that? Isn’t that …
: Your “Constants” Are What Give You Energy and Hope annahavron.com
: Cat Meets Manual Typewriter So, I found my husband’s old manual typewriter in the attic the other day. It needs a new ribbon, …
: It’s alive…. it’s alive …. it’s ALIVE!!!!
: Write and print out an operations manual for your smart house My father, who is in his eighties, is a retired systems engineer. Twenty years ago when he retired, …
: Three Reasons to Go Analog 1) To get away from screens. Being in front of a screen, for me at least, increasingly feels like …
: Office Toy: the A-Z Sorter Once upon a time I worked in a medical office, which was transitioning from paper records to …
: Is It Ours ...Or Just Yours? How Analog Cheat Sheets Empower Everyone My husband has a day job, but he is also a musician. When he meets other musicians, they go into …
: Office Toy: the Date Stamp I like to have the date on just about everything I write. My master calendar and task tracking apps …
: An analog cure for brain freeze: the wallet card Many years ago, when cell phones had keyboards and our family had the luxury of owning one cell …
: New Year, another blog. Analog Office is my digital love letter* to analog office supplies and organizing methods. I love …