It’s good to see you again, my dear readers. I had planned to get this all written and setup and ready to go on Monday night. But, then the internet disconnected where I live (I imagine there must have been an issue with a tree limb somewhere) and I was unable to upload when it suited me. No doubt, I will end up bringing some items with me to my day job so I can photograph them during breaks in order to get everything ready to go on Tuesday at some point. They will find me ominously squatting in the wild violets, I imagine. 

I’ve had so much success with the concept of the project binder both in my day job and judging by the number of hits that particular blog post gets. So, I thought it might be time to make an update and perhaps suggest another tool. 

Project Binder Updates

I separated my binder out into sections in my first post on the subject, but I think there are a few things that I want to change now. First, I have not been able to focus on my Clow Craft or my Wreck This Deck work at all. For those of you who have not been following closely, I have been having a number of issues that just seem to keep piling up. At least the roof is fixed, but we are still waiting for someone to re-hang my cabinets so my kitchen can get put back together. 

I think the biggest change I would make would be to add a ‘completed’ section that I could immediately flip to or flip past. I do like to have what I call ‘little moments of total arrogance’ where I look back on everything I’ve accomplished in xyz amount of time, and just sort of bask in it. Admittedly, I have a really bad habit of ignoring what I have completed and immediately rushing into the next thing. 

Second, I think I would do well to add something like a ‘brain dump’ page to just get all the projects that need spreads done onto one reference page that I could look back at. Sometimes I just don’t have the desire or emotional bandwidth to complete a spread in any given moment. But, boy am I good at forgetting what all needs to get done around here. 

The Scanner Book / Scanner Binder

Dearest readers, I don’t know about all of you. But the book ‘Refuse to Choose’ by Barbara Sher has made the rounds in all of my social circles multiple times. The author posits that people who have multiple interests and who shift their current focus between them should not be ashamed of their nature, but embrace their love of their multiple interests. As someone who often lamented being ‘unable to just commit’ to one thing my entire life, I will say that this book caused a huge change in my mindset about my interests and myself. 

In this book, Barbara suggests keeping a ‘scanner book’ like a notebook or sketch book that functions as a catch-all landing spot for all of your ideas, concepts, notes, and references for each of the projects. There’s just one issue with my scanner book: I can’t find a damn thing when I need to find it! 

I must have made the exact same note about six times and only taken care of it once. That note, by the way, was that the sticker printer for the snooty crows stickers went too dark and I need to lighten the graphics. 

Thus, I would like to posit that a Scanner Binder that I could organize and rearrange might suit my needs better. I already have a number of really good reference images in my current scanner book—and that has been enormously useful when I need to actively develop projects and concepts. My big gripe here is that now that Staples has left my town for good, I am not quite sure where the heck to go to get my expensive color printing done! One hopes the library will be able to help me out. 

Is that sort of book or binder the type of thing any of you would be interested in using or seeing examples of?