Materials

Scotch Restickable Adhesive Glue Stick

Instant sticky notes

Whereas most glue sticks are designed to permanently stick paper to paper, this glue stick ($2) is designed to create instant, repositionable sticky notes out of just about anything (Scotch specifies fabric or paper). A swipe or two (they recommend at least two) with this stick, and your self-printed content/form/memo will stick temporarily to any flat dry surface without residue. I love this stuff and use it to make my various Getting Things Done/43 folders items and tasks stay put in my handheld binder. I jot my items and tasks down on variously colored pieces of paper of whatever size I need, rub the magic stickum on them, and they stay put in my binder until I decide to move them around. My inner child is happy because I get to play with stickers and glue; my inner adult is happy because I can continually and easily refine my GTD system until it is transparent to the tasks at hand; my inner artist is pleased by the happy riot of colors and shapes that my ‘organization’ system has become; and my inner accountant is happy that I’m not wasting so much money on little pads of sticky notes. And when it’s time, it can all be peeled up and recycled. Although this stuff is more expensive than regular glue sticks, a little goes a long way. If any gets where it shouldn’t, it washes off with water.

Now that my daughters discovered I have one of these sticks, I have a hard time getting it back. They are fond of making up board games out of pen and paper, which guarantees lots of little bits in the carpet as the game pieces fly around on the slightest breeze. Now they stay put. Ditto for the print-and-cut-apart paper games like Scrabble variants, chess and checkers that you can print from the Web: playability is greatly improved when the playfield can be held on a clipboard in your lap with sticky pieces that won’t budge until you want them to. Next big trip we’re taking, the girls are getting clipboards with a stack of these things printed out, cut apart, stuck down and ready to play.

-- Bill Fleet 08/21/18

(This is a Cool Tools Favorite from 2008 — editors)

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