Sticky notes. Post-its. Adhesive paper. Tacky tabs and markers. As I gaze across the field of cubicles in the vast offices of the Analog Attorney wing of Attorney at Work, I see the rainbow hues of adhered notes covering every square inch, and I’m struck by the idea that there must be more to learn about sticky notes for legal professionals. More colors, more shapes and especially more strange and whimsical forms of these incredibly useful adhesive notes.
Table of contents
- More Sticky Notes for Legal Professionals
- Post-Its: The Goat of Sticky Notes
- Adhesive Page Markers in Every Color and Hue
- Adhesive Tab Dispensers for Sticky Notes at Your Fingertips
- Witness My Adoration of Quadrille Sticky Notes
- See-Through Sticky Notes You Can See Through
- Adhesive Page Markers for Marking Pages with Tabs
- Novelty Sticky Notes
- Stick These Adhesive Highlighter Tabs Where the Sun Don’t Shine (In a Book)
- We’re Not Done Here!
More Sticky Notes for Legal Professionals
What follows is a comprehensive listing of adhesive notational paper products, categorized by usage, unranked, and chosen entirely by my own stifled and overwhelming desire to purchase every one of them. (I’ve been warned.)
Sticky notes are my jam.
As I have stated previously here on Attorney at Work, I am a professional Post-It noter. Sometimes, the notes I leave myself overtake my workspace and my wife has to come dig me out, but mostly I manage to keep them just under the level of mild insanity. Some guys spend their money on golf. Everyone needs a hobby. Don’t judge me.
I know I said the following list of sticky products is unranked, but you may detect a pattern in my purchases that skews toward the finer stationery of Japan. Mochi, Midori, Tomoe River, Stalogy and Kokyou. What can I say? I know what I like.
(You may have read my tribute to the amazing ways the Hobonichi Techo will save your life, here.)
Post-Its: The Goat of Sticky Notes
Back in the 1970s, 3M essentially stumbled into creating the world’s most useful office supply. Spencer Silver was messing around with adhesives at 3M and accidentally developed this weird, low-tack stuff that stuck to things but came off clean. Classic happy accident. His colleague Art Fry had a problem — his hymnal bookmarks kept falling out during choir practice (because, of course, they did). Fry slapped Silver’s adhesive onto some paper scraps, and boom: the Post-it Note was born. 3M launched them commercially in 1980, and suddenly everyone had tiny yellow squares stuck to everything they owned. Sometimes the best inventions happen when you’re trying to solve a completely different problem.
Every adhesive note I mention for the rest of this article owes everything to Fry and Silver for their mad scientist efforts and nerd-level note-keeping annoyance.
Adhesive Page Markers in Every Color and Hue
You use a lot of page tabs. Your paralegal and your secretary use three times as many. They are the backbone of research and document notation. Although we all have a plastic card with the five colors of page flags attached, there are more sizes and more colors under the sun.
Adhesive Tab Dispensers for Sticky Notes at Your Fingertips
Although I have a pile of sticky notes on my desk (and in the drawers, and on the floors, and ever more, ever more), I can’t deny the handiness of a Post-it Notes dispenser strapped to my wrist. Or clipped to my notebook. Or attached to a clipboard or just drilled into my forehead. How you do it is entirely up to you, but here are three iterations that are worth the money.
Witness My Adoration of Quadrille Sticky Notes
There are so many — not only brand iterations, but so many kinds of graph designs. They are the perfect match for the very, very organized person, but they are especially good for those who need to drop an illustration into their notes. Here are two of the very best from Muji USA.
See-Through Sticky Notes You Can See Through
Translucent adhesive note pads are far more useful than you may think. They’re fun because you can draw a rubber nose and glasses on one, then put it over your boss’s photo. But you can also add, for instance, an alt version of a part illustration. Unlike their opaque cousins, these vellum-thin adhesive sheets allow you to layer thoughts, corrections and observations directly onto existing text while preserving complete readability of what lies beneath.
Adhesive Page Markers for Marking Pages with Tabs
Sometimes, a simple page tab is just not enough. You need context. Instead of adding a second sticky note beside a page marker, you can use these tabbed page flags to add your context to a single product. Boom. Stuck. Tabbed.
Novelty Sticky Notes
I have to admit this is my favorite category because the products here are whimsical and fun. If you drill down, you’ll dig up sticky notes and accessories that are plainly ludicrous. I won’t list them here, as I am a dignified grown-up person, but I am happy to turn you on to these, starting with my faves, the literary sticky note book.
Stick These Adhesive Highlighter Tabs Where the Sun Don’t Shine (In a Book)
These are a new development in the highlighting game, which is vicious and savage, as you may expect. I remain skeptical as to why anyone possessing an actual highlighter would choose to peel a long, flimsy sticker off a stack and try to fit it onto a sentence so it’s perfectly aligned, but I’m snooty. I suppose the perfection of the line is appealing, and also, it’s a sticky note, and some of us are nerds.
We’re Not Done Here!
Featured photo by Kelsy Gagnebin on Unsplash
