Note Card Bleachers

Just about everyone’s heard of—and has probably used—3 x 5 cards, but where did they come from? Surprisingly, their origin dates back a thousand years. Also known as index cards, their evolution is rooted in the concept of cataloging, or indexing, key words in a book.

The monks of medieval times employed a hands-on system for marking a manuscript’s key words: they would use a symbol that indicated a finger pointing to the term—that digit being the forefinger, or index finger. Index traces its roots to Latin and the concept of informer, or pointer. Its Greek forbear means to show.

Eventually these pointy fingers found their way to the back of the book in the form of an index of terms.

But how were books themselves being catalogued? In fits and starts, it seems, with the Alexandria Library using an alphabetical system in the third century B.C. E., but the European libraries using a peculiar rhyming system 11 centuries later. Things got better organized in the nineteenth century, and in 1820 the first card catalog appeared in a library in London.

The American hero of the library index card was Melvil Dewey. He introduced his decimal classification system in the 1870s, in the library at Amherst College in western Massachusetts. The card he devised for his catalog drawers was approximately 3" x 5". The typewriter had been invented a few years earlier, and ultimately the card and the keys met and married.

The Library of Congress started printing its catalog index cards in 1901. For the next eight decades or so, the library index card and its attendant cabinets would serve as the Google of their day. Nicholson Baker, in his elegiac essay on card catalogs that appeared in The New Yorker in 1994, reported that the New York Public Library harbored 10 million cards.

With all these cards in libraries, perhaps it was only a matter of time before they segued into general use. Thrifty librarians primed the pump by setting out discarded cards for patrons to use for notes. Seeing the cards’ usefulness, stationers began offering blank cards for sale. Business and professional people, writers and students adopted the cards as standard tools for researching, filing and organizing information.

And then, of course, computers struck. Card cabinets in libraries were dismantled and the cards discarded. There simply wasn’t enough room anymore to capture all our knowledge on a 3" x 5" descendant of papyrus. The once ubiquitous little cards, whose origins are so closely linked to cataloging knowledge, teetered on the brink of extinction.

The index card is still a handy palimpsest, the screen on which one can quickly capture first ideas, reminder notes, titles of books friends recommend, your grandmother’s recipe for pumpkin pie. Index cards, with their scratch-outs, imperfect erasures and caret insertions, jog our memory as only the tactile can.

By contrast, electronic systems live a perilously finite existence. Better operating systems, application software and search engines will come along and the current hero will be banished, forgotten, trashed.

Get your digit out, the English are fond of saying—meaning, get cracking. Get your digit out—and your pen—and jot a note on an index card. It still has a place in the digital world.

“A key tip: try to limit what you write on cards to a single topic or subject, such as a grocery list on one card, a hardware list on another. For work, keep cards for different people or areas of responsibility.”

“I use a very fine-point pen to get lots of information on one card and I write neatly—most of the time.”

“I almost never write on the backs, and this saves me from always having to turn cards around to see if there is writing on the back. Occasionally, when I’m taking a bunch of notes on one topic, like during a speech, then I’ll write on the backs. But I number each card side, 1, 2, 3, which is my cue to look at the backs.”

Steve also uses them to make daily lists of to-dos that he adds to and crosses off as he goes through the day.

They have been around for a century, they’re as low-tech as they come, but 3 x 5 cards can fill an exalted role among twenty-first-century thinkers. Within the realm of capturing ideas and acting on them, they fill a niche that notebooks and electronics can’t. What could be...

• simpler to use
• easier to shuffle around
• handier to keep and pull from a pocket
• more disposable—or lasting—than a simple index card?

At Levenger, we first saw 3 x 5 cards as a larger and more functional business card. Stand them vertically so that they’re 5 x 3, and you can write a note right on your business card.

Gradually, we’ve realized that their power goes beyond this. Three-by-fives are the stuff of 24/7 ideas, better than back-of-the-envelope yet engendering that same freewheeling kind of thinking that often leads to the Great Idea.

And they’re not only for taking notes on the run. They’re for anywhere and any way you capture, develop and organize ideas. That’s why, in addition to our Pocket Briefcases for travel, you’ll now find a variety of other options for note card organization and project planning, including our 3 x 5 Action Folios, Note Card Bleachers and Note Card Action Board.

Have you, like Steve, found a way to fit 3 x 5 into your repertoire of laptops, BlackBerries and iPods? Drop us an e-note at cservice@levenger.com and let us know how you use both a high-tech tool and the versatile low-tech power of 3 x 5.

The top of your desk is some of the most valuable real estate in your office. How you arrange your work tools here can make the difference in how productive you are.

Let's concede that most of us have to be connected in some way to a phone and computer. Beyond these, what do you need? We recommend these 4Ps for an effective desktop.

1. Project manager

This often takes the form of an in-box. Think outside the box here, beyond the traditional two-tray configuration. Perhaps a tier of three would work better for you: one to do, one to read, one to think about by Friday. What tray assignments make the most sense to you?

If you have a credenza behind you or a work table to the side of you, consider a row of trays or baskets that you can label by project. Do you use a paper tickler file? Many successful people do.

2. Pitch file

Better known as the wastebasket. One of the best pieces of advice that some of the top organization experts offer is to open your mail over a wastebasket. What doesn't land in your project management system, or in a pass-along pile, probably belongs in your pitch file. (Note: this does not include Levenger catalogs.)

3. Paper companion

The chances of the world going completely paperless are about the same as forests reclaiming New England. Even the members of our Internet team have some concessions to papyrus on their desks. Make room for the paper you need and you'll be pleased for it.

I sometimes like to write rather than key my words, and find an inclined surface atop the middle of my desk the best spot to do it (the laptop is directly behind me). Our merchandising director, one of the most paperless people I know, has a paper notebook for logging voicemails.

Our senior VP of marketing is the keeper of 3x5 note cards. They become her to-do lists, which she refreshes biweekly with what's been done and what's to come. As she points out, it doesn't take a lot of filing to find them.

4. Personal pleasure

A beautiful object, a collectible or some other piece that's special to you will make your desk a pleasing environment and not just a workspace. Often it's a photograph. Lori loves the idea of fresh flowers on her desk, and you'll usually find an orchid in bloom.

If you derive satisfaction from your work, why not take pleasure from the place where you accomplish so much of it?

Just one more item to make your desktop functional: a good reading lamp. Now you're ready to light up the world with your talent.