Today on ProductivityCast we discussed some of our favorite non-digital productivity gear.
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In this Cast
Ray Sidney-Smith
Augusto Pinaud
Art Gelwicks
Francis Wade
Show Notes | Non-Digital Productivity Gear
Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
Dymo LetraTag LT-100H Portable Label MakerPilot FriXion Ball Clicker Erasable Gel Pens, Fine Point, Blue InkRocketbook BeaconsTargus Podium CoolpadLARQ water bottleLevenger Pocket BriefcaseCross Tech3+ stylusSqueeze BallDecaf CoffeeWhiteboard
Raw Text Transcript | Non-Digital Productivity Gear
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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17
And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud.
Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade.
Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners today to this episode. Today, what we wanted to do is we wanted to get a little bit non techie with some non digital technology, I suppose. But what we're going to do today is an episode on non digital productivity gear that we all use in our everyday lives in our in our productivity systems, that help us be more productive, and hopefully will help you be more productive in knowing about them. Even if you don't use the exact products we use, we you can find the things that we are talking about, and they might help you be more productive. And so what we're going to do is go around Round Robin, and each of us will describe what the tool is and why we use it and how we use it in our own systems. And that brings me to our first item, I'm going to go with art galax art, what was your first choice of your gear?
Art Gelwicks 1:22Well, these aren't in any particular order. But the first thing I'll pull out here is my favorite little Dymo, letter tag, portable label maker. I mean, we've all seen one of those label makers before with the keyboard on the top, type it in. And it makes that lovely little mechanical sound as it spits the label out the side. Well, I'm just looking around my office right now, I've got cabinets labeled, I've got folders labeled, I've got drawers labeled, it's amazing how important it is just to know what something is without having to open it and route around in it. And it helps get past that hole out of sight out of mind issue that you can run into so often. So that's that's probably my first thing. I don't know that it's necessarily the best label maker. There's tons of them out there. And technically, it's digital. But to me, it's very straightforward. And it's very simple. And it just does the one job that it's supposed to do. And it does it very well.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:19So what do you find that you use it the most for?
Art Gelwicks 2:23I would have to say it's it is primarily for my file folders. And for labeling drawers and cables, it is just that consistent thing where I want to be able to have something clear and easy to read from a distance. Plus, I want that consistency of visual. I'm a little bit of a design geek when it comes to that type of thing. So when I look at, for example, manila folders, I like that consistency of being able to go through and just have all the tabs uniform. So it's very easy to flip through and identify things. So there aren't, there aren't specific things. The one thing I do use it for though, which I don't know that everybody necessarily does. I use it for labeling cables, and power supplies. Because if you look in a box, for example, we usually wind up with like seven or eight different power supplies, they all look the same, but they have different voltages and things like that. And I'll admit, it's getting a little hard for me to read that fine print. So I'll take the most important information on there such as which computer it's supposed to go to or what its output voltages and label and just put it back on the back of the power supply so I can get to it.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:29I've been using a brother p touch 1100 q l for many, many years. And it's just one of those workhorses that takes a lickin and keeps on ticking. And so I've had it for so long, and it just keeps working. And so it has the cartridges you put into it. And you can type all kinds of things into it and save it and then print on demand. And yeah, I've I've actually looked into the brother, I forget which model that one is. But it you plug it into your computer, and you can print directly from the machine, various labels, but I've just really never gotten over the tactile control you have with the buttons on the P touch 1100 qL. So,
Art Gelwicks 4:11yeah, that and that's I think that's the interesting part about those kinds of label makers. I've tried for years to use, like inkjet labels and laser printer labels and the setup and the work, you can do some neat stuff, don't get me wrong, but the setup and the effort just takes so much time away from actually accomplishing what you're trying to do. The label makers are just just that they're just straightforward. Like do the job they get back in the drawer until the next time they do the job. I looked at some of the desktop ones where they do the single label on demand. And I'm like, okay, that's fine, but I don't generate that many labels. What I do I generate a bunch, but otherwise it's just going to be sitting there tying up desk space, and it's not really getting me any benefit at that point. I want something I can use And put away when I'm done with it. So I will stick with this until it dies. And then I will probably buy another one that looks exactly like it.
Augusto Pinaud 5:08Mine is also Dymo Letratag. So even more basic model than, than the one you have is the most basic one of the lateral tag. And he was actually what I got when when I begin doing my first getting things done swap. So we're talking about 2002 I think 2003 when when I got mine and it died, okay, it only lasts so long. And I went and replace it for the same one because of the I had the card that juice and I love the fact that in that one, you can even replace and use paper or you can use plastic. So I have a couple of different things for for different purpose. If I want waterproof, then I have one that he's made of plastic so that way I can label that. And it is really interesting how good it is to to have that I have never even considered going into a Desktop space where anything is wrong when I need it. I just can't pull it out and print what I need and continue with my life is a really, really a fantastic tool.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:14Elisa, what's your first pick of your non digital productivity gear?
Augusto Pinaud 6:18You know, the first one I'm going to pick is a 11 year pocket briefcase. I take notes. And not every note even that I take a lot of notes on my iPad Mini. Not every meeting is good to bring the iPad Mini there is still a lot of people who feels that if you have the device on the table, you're not paying attention to which index cards are your best ally. I don't have notebooks because I don't want to carry notebooks because it's not every meeting that I need to to use it but i have i bought years ago this love in your pocket briefcase on basically, it's a fancy way to carry the index card. But he works really, really well for these kind of things. I can have a main card, and then it has a couple of buckets that you can put clean one and the ones you just use for process. And it has been a fantastic tool for over the years.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:18So how much can it really carry? Like how much stuff can you shove into it?
Augusto Pinaud 7:25Well, right now I have one I have right now 12 clean index cards. And I can probably go until 36 index cards.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:41Okay, not bad.
Art Gelwicks 7:42Yeah, it's interesting. If I think back in the day, they used to talk about the levenger pocket notebook in combination with an old thing called the hipster PDA, where you would actually build out your own personal organizer using index cards in a binder clip. But if you wanted to do it more on the high end, you would couple it with one of the levenger pocket briefcases to give you a nicer place to actually capture the notes on the index cards and then transfer them over into the analog PDA. It's been around a little while.
Augusto Pinaud 8:14It's been around for a really long time. Yeah. And they are. Again, I don't know how old How old is this thing. But it's been it's been with me for a long time.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:25Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you. All right. So I picked the for my first item. It's still a little bit techie, but I'm going to use it anyway,
