I’m not much for “life hack” kinds of articles, but …

I come back from every conference I go to with a stack of business cards, and the question “why do I have these cards?”

I have tried so many ways to remember why I have particular cards, and ensure actual followup. Write a note on the card. (Invariably it gets smudged, or the available space isn’t enough to actually communicate what I’m supposed to do with the card.) Scan it into Evernote (Kinda sorta works, but somehow I never follow up n them.) Email myself a photo of the card with some notes. (This is pretty good, but involves actually doing it immediately after the conversation, so that I don’t forget, which seldom works at conferences.)

This week I tried something different.

This is a staple-less stapler. You can get one on Amazon HERE.

And I always carry a notebook.

So at FOSDEM I did this:

In case you can’t tell from the photo, I stapled the card to a page in my notebook, and wrote the notes right there. Since my book is always with me, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to forget, this time. And I have room for all of the notes that I need, right there with the contact information I need to follow up.

You can see how the back of the page looks, here.

If you’re curious how the stapler works, you can watch here:

You could, of course, use an actual stapler. It’s just messier and you end up with staples that can tear the page.