Index cards are great, you can use them for all kinds of things. Me, I never really bothered about them until a couple of years ago, when I was involved in the creation of a board game. They were perfect for jotting down stats on, so I bought a bunch.
The board game never reached production, and was actually just barely playable to be honest. It wasn’t such a good idea, it would seem.
The index cards, however, turned up when I was moving out to the country (I’ve moved since, back in a city again, by the way), and I was immediately hooked.
Yes, hooked.
There’s something with the form of an index card that appeals to me. I would never use them for keeping track of addresses and things like that, they are way inferior for these tasks, but there are other uses.
I mainly use index cards for:
- Taking down quick notes. I’ve got a notepad as well, but sometimes I want my notes to be portable, so I jot them down on an index card, and put them in the back pocket of my Moleskine notebook that I always carry with me.
- Taking down notes on the road. While I carry a Moleskine notebook with me at all times, not every note is worth to put on its papers. Ideas and strands of thought that I know will evolve usually end up on an index card first, as do phone numbers and other things I really just need to store away for a little while.
- Handing out notes. So you got your expensive and very classy notebook, right? Do you want to rip out pages from it just because you need to hand someone your phone number, URL, e-mail or whatever? Of course not. Index cards on the road really do come in handy. This was a bigger issue before, pre-mobile phones, but sometimes a piece of paper is preferred, and you’re not getting one from my Moleskine!
I really do love my Moleskine… Sorry, moving on:
- Index cards as indexes. Again, in notebooks you sometimes want an index, especially when you’ve filled it and replaced it with a new one. I use index cards for this, making it easy to find my way.
- Storyboarding. I like the very visual approach of writing down pieces of a story on index cards, and then arrange them so that I can see what’s happening. Same goes for characters and timelines.
- The index card todo list. I had an index card todo list a while back. It didn’t work out for me exactly as I planned, but it might for some, so I’ll write more about it later.
I think one reason I like index cards so much, is the lack of space. Every word, nay, every letter counts, because you can’t fit so many in there. I actually have a role-playing system (as in pen-and-paper, folks) in the back sleeve of my current notebook. It consists of no more than six index cards, and the idea was to not have any rule in the game to take more room than one card.
I use index cards a lot, and always have a stack on my desk. I also carry a few with me in my notebook.
Tell me, am I mad, or what do you think?
As interesting the use of index card was, I got more interested in the RPG system of yours.
Have it published anywhere?
Nope, not yet. It still sits in my Moleskine’s back pocket, on index cards. I intend to go through it and possibly publish it when I get the chance, though. Perhaps over the holiday’s, we’ll see. I’ll be sure to blog about it here if/when I do, so keep an eye out.
Have this ones feed on my reader already.
Nice!
Ah clever and simple indeed. I must admit i never used that method before. A sure way to keep taps on your writing.
have you considered indexing your notebooks. As the saying goes, “Good quality notebooks don’t have to be expensive, dirt cheap ones are just as good.”