From the outside, scraps of paper as the thing of the year seem laughable. It is laughable. I am laughing on the inside at it too.

I have a habit with paper that I got in control of in 2024.

The first is accepting that notebooks are cool, but I am not good with them. Either the blank page stops me from writing a thought down because then I need to fill the whole page with things. Then I need to fill up the whole other side before moving on. So I found myself not noting things from "page pressure".

Cut up the notebooks into index card-sized pieces.

There was less pressure, but there was still unused space to fill. I had all these half-used notecards hanging around, which felt like there was a ton of unfinished to-dos.

Then I cut the notecard-size pieces into business card-size pieces. It was like a logjam in the mental river was released. It is the perfect size for a single thought. I don't feel like I am wasting paper because the piece is so small.

Now instead of pausing at a blank canvas, I grab a scrap and write a quick thought. A bonus that happened as well is the thoughts are s.｡oO sortable and rearrangeable. The fluidness rules. I am not reading old thoughts while composing the new thought. The momentum keeps moving forward.

All the thoughts get processed during processing time.

• Sort: All the scraps are sorted by context (person, music, computer, etc.).
• Read: Spread out all the scraps in the context and read them.
• Process: Look for patterns, combine any redundant, put tasks into the to-do app, store non-tasks into a reference text file (one for each context).
• Crumple: Crumple is the new cross-out. Very satisfying crunching a processed thought.
• Throw: Throwing away a handful of crunched thoughts is also satisfying.

So cheers to you, humble scraps of paper, you are the non-drum thing of the year.