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mind.Depositor 2 - leather only

After creating the original mind.Depositor with clips and used it for a while, I found a small problem but it bugs me on regular basis.  To insert and pull out the cards, it requires force, no matter how small it is, it creates stress.  That's why superior Japanese stationery designs often put into considerations how to reduce user efforts.  They call the practice "Universal Design".

 

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

 

 

So I set out to do a simpler version by using two pieces of leather only.  I also have a practice to carry a small notepad or Field Notes to capture to-do inputs temporarily before transferring them to GTD index cards.  So I'm adding a slit for the notepad and a slit to store extra blank index cards.

 

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

 

 

On the left hand side of the cover, I can put a notepad by inserting it to a slit, put blank GTD index cards in the pocket and insert a Field Notes.

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

On the right hand side I can put two categories of index cards (Personal and Work) into different pockets.

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

There is also a flap used as a bookmark or enclosure.

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

The whole thing becomes more compact and functional.  It requires less effort to use, it is a simpler design with pleasant leather as the only material, I'm so happy with it.  I especially like the color contrast of the outer white and inner brown.  So check out the sections below and learn how to create your own.

 

mind.Depositor 2: Leather Jacket for notepad and 6x4 index cards

 

 

• Original mind.Depositor
• Download mind.Depositor Index Card Templates
• How to create the original mind.Depositor
• How to create mind.Depositor 2

 

 

Previous cover of mind.Depositor: Lifehacker.com (followup, and Japanese version of it), GTDTimes, Moleskinerie, Koloist, David Allen Co., Lifehacking.jp, Geeks Guide To Productivity

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These Are The Things We Store

KOLO Havana Box

Following a discussion at Koloist.com's recent post "True Confessions of a Former Pack Rat", I'm to reveal my way of using KOLO's Havana boxes.  I own 3 Havana boxes, a black bonded leather medium, a red cloth medium and a green cloth large.  The 2 medium ones are in my office.  I use the black one to store name cards bundled by events, the red one is for storing postage stamps and interesting papers I collected from company mails.  So I'm not using these boxes for photos at all coz the hurdle to start get organized with ALL of your prints is simply too high I stalled.

KOLO Havana Box

The green large Havana box at home is used to store paper stuffs related to my son.  I limited the collection to paper and some photos otherwise 10 boxes would not be enough.  Here's the content:

1. A large Moleskine notebook: I write down key events and funny stuffs I heard from my son.  Sometimes I stick photos in it.
2. A Moleskine Japanese album in small size: It was unfolded and used as a decoration of our living room shelf.  It contains pages of me and my wife's baby pictures, wedding pictures and my son's baby photos.  It is like a story unfolded.
3. Photo copies of drawings I made for my son, postcards I sent to him when I was overseas for business, his first movie ticket, all these small stuffs.
4. A large sketch book: this is the most interactive part of my treasure chest.  I would pick up this sketch book once in a while and ask my son what he wants to see on a page.  Most of the time he would say McQueen or Thomas, he is never bored by them, but I would ask a few questions to steer him away from those thoughts.  Eventually we would end up with a very nice page we both like a lot.  In this picture you see a blue/red stripe box with a hole.  My son looked inside using a flash light and found 2 blue birds, so we went to a dark room bringing this sketch book and try to investigate further how they look like.  We used flash light, we inserted our little fingers to the hole to feel their feathers, we were pecked by them, they flew out in the dark room and our flash light went wild searching for them while we could hear them chirped.  We finally realized that we were actually in the same situation as these 2 blue birds.  We were in a dark room with windows, "perhaps a huge finger will push through the window and poke us like what we did to the blue birds!" And then we ran around the room to hide from the window.  I asked my son if that huge finger really poke us, what would he do, he said "hit it! hit it hard!", I said "Oh I see, we would do the same like those two little blue birds! That's why they pecked us, they were scared".  And "what if that huge finger belongs to a giant who's also inside a bigger box called Earth? ...."  Our mind flew away and we had such a great time imagining, all through one drawing.  This I treasure a lot.

So these are things I stored in KOLO's Havana Boxes.  If you look at the content disregarding the materials, you get to understand you are storing connections, love, exploration, imagination, happiness.  These are things giving you smiles, motivations and inspirations when you open the boxes, these are things you pass to people around you too, they age well.

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I Don't Give Photos To People Expecting Them

Have you realized that our technologies are training us on day to day basis to steer us away from appreciating the content?  Yes we are getting faster and faster thanks to the arcade games when we were young, computers give you the hourglasses and your mind is far far away while you are waiting.  Look at those TV commercials comparing them to those of 10 years ago, we are so fast to grab the message.  Yet these things not only shorten our attention span, they deactivate our natural tendency to contemplate, to get the meaning behind the obvious.  Mark my word, there will be a huge paradigm shift in 2010-2012 of which people will fight for moments of slowness because there will be a mass realization of something deeper in everything.  We will still be fast, but we will treasure the space in between.

Carrie Chau's Indigo Child Exhibition Dec 08 Times Square

So I simply don't give people photos of our recent gathering.  Coz there will be no impact of such photos to a person's life, it comes and it goes, buried into a hard drive or sitting somewhere getting dust.  Photos age well, not because of the material but of substance.  When you receive a photo years later, you spend more time looking at it, thinking about it.  Who was that?  Where is he/she now?  We were so young.  Oh yeah that's when we missed our flight.....

Dart Night in Ebisu Sep 08

It was last year when Iona, Sharon and I had a drink in an Ebizu dart pub.  I talked about having difficulty finding a good stationery buyer.  Iona thought of her friend and with subsequent events that followed, I ended a one year search of a capable person for the job.  This picture reminds me of that when I look back, and I appreciate a lot the connection between things.

Iona's Wedding

And Iona got married finally after a few family mishaps.  She was very nervous and must have been full of emotions she didn't smile at all, not when the professional photographers pointed their lens at her.  I remember the stories of her recently passed away father, I remember her doubts about marriage when I gave her a tarot reading, and I could see how she couldn't smile.  But when I showed up on the banquet and pointed my camera at her she smiled the most natural smile I see every day at work!  I was genuinely trying to look at her even though we were never close, my camera and my presence made those smiles and I'm so happy by myself already.  And I'm not giving her these photos either.

Dinner with Japanese Colleagues

Before we played dart we had a dinner party with our Japanese colleagues in Ebisu.  Our director raised glass to thank Okuyama san for her hard work and she cried unstoppable.  Nobody know why to this date.  My guess is that she was having difficulty coping with the pressure and that was a relieve.  If this photo were given to her, it would only create embarrassment.  If this photo is given to her when it will be bygones, she will probably look back with a smile, seeing people surrounding her comforting and supporting her when she cried.

Share photos with greatest impact possible, look behind the images.

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New Pair of Glasses, New Pair of Lens

Happy Chinese New Year!!  It's the Year of Cow coming.

For a long time I've wanted to change my pair of glasses, embarrassingly long.  And my avartar too.  The previous one was from a picture taken like 9 years ago!  OK, just the right time my old pair of glasses were broken during my most difficult month of 2008.  Now I'm refreshing myself with a pair of white one along side with a new avartar.

Lubitel 166+

And I have a new pair of lens too, the LUBITEL 166+.  Technically, I borrowed it from a LOMO, but its new!  I love the fact that it takes both 120 and 135 films and I can play with a lot of double exposure effects.  The only bad thing so far about it is that the knob which locks the camera back is not so secure, I had part of my film exposed because it was easily loosen when I put into my leather bag.  Behind the camera: my altered personality named Elmo and an orange elephant my son got from a xmas fair.

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New Year Fail Whale, Xmas Traveler

I received many Xmas/New Year cards recently but these two are most amazing.

Moleskiner.cn New Year Postcard

Thanks to Victor from Moleskiner.cn, a new year post card with a cultural phenomena on it.  If you are a twitterer, you know what I'm talking about, the fail whale twitter down time image.  Victor's friend Yiying Lu created this lovely image, used by Twitter, promoted by Yiying's supporters.  Learn more about the story of Fail Whale here.

Midori Traveler's Notebook Xmas Card

Thanks to Iijima san who sent me this raw Xmas card!  I love the rawness and personal touch of it.  Check out Midori's Traveler's Notebook Flickr group and product page.

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Huge Moleskine City Notebook Display

Moleskine City Notebook Tokyo/Kyoto Launch

Many have been waiting for Tokyo City Notebook's arrival for a long time.  It is finally here launching together with Kyoto version.  We are receiving these huge display for our stores to get maximum impact of such launch.  Perhaps there will be people queuing up waiting to take a picture with it.

Moleskine City Notebook Tokyo/Kyoto Launch

I myself will wait for the stores finish using the display and drag it back to my home for wall decoration!  Envy me eh?

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牛心 - Creative Box in Shanghai

牛心 Creative Box in Shanghai

I was in Shanghai 4 days for business, between meetings I went to different interesting places and met quite a few interesting souls.  One type of stores interested me most, they are called "treasure boxes".  You can rent a tiny box and sell your stuffs or simply treat it as a showcase of your artworks.  Most of these boxes are selling commercial stuffs, parallel import items.  But this lovely store called 牛心 (cow's heart, or Ushigokoro in Japanese) has a genuine personality in its decorations.  To put stuffs there, they have to be "original", "self-production" and "no current distribution to the public".

牛心 Creative Box in Shanghai

Opened in April 2007, the space is about 25 sq. meters filled with exhibition space and 170 boxes for rent.  These boxes are made of "recycled wastes" found in Shanghai, each illuminated with a small light bulb.  It is like peeking into these 170 people's life and wondering who they are, I could've spent an entire afternoon there.  The location is equally interesting, an European style building called "Diage" built in 1930s in a former French concession area, the small complex is filled with a restaurant, a bar and a courtyard filled with sunshine.  A total get away area different from its surroundings.

牛心 is created by 3 Japanese and 1 Hong Konger.  It has a huge difference in promoting art and culture in the form of "treasure box" style store when you compare it with the rest of those profit only offers.  I just love to see these differences, rewarding trip!

• 牛心 Creative Box homepage
• 牛心 blog
• More photos and report from 新茶 Neocha

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Postcard Fanatics' Monthly Gathering - Bloomsbury Card Fair

Second to the bikini on Koloist's Chaotic Universe post was the mentioning of post card which got me into this connection thing again.  Now I don't consciously collect them but somehow I have them around me (and I don't mean bikini) and keep bumping into relating events and shops.

Bloomsbury Card Fair

In 2007 I went to the Lomo World Congress event in London (1st Day, 2nd Day, Photos).  On the last day of my visit, 30 mins. away from leaving the Royal National Hotel I saw a poster of the Bloomsbury Postcard Fair happening right there in a conference hall!  The event happens EVERY SINGLE MONTH!  But I got less than 30 mins., without waiting I paid 1.5 pounds and met really interesting folks!

Bloomsbury Card Fair

Bloomsbury Card Fair

I didn't know where to start, it was crazy, the clock was ticking.  So I went to more organized exhibitors, the classification and the way they store them alone worth the entire trip to UK, it is like a primitive Google for searching postcards.  You name it, they have a way.  By countries, 30's 40's 50's, wars, transportations, children, eras, ....  My mind flew away imagining that if there is such a physical search engine sorting resorting these postcards on the fly according to your search terms, wouldn't it be a sight?

Bloomsbury Card Fair

And I met Ken Lister, a regular visitor to the show.  He gave me some hints on how to find things there and he mentioned that there is such a fair happening in Hong Kong which I didn't know!  Ken was an extensive traveler, been to many places in South East Asia, I wish there was more time to chat with him. Tick tock tick tock.

Bloomsbury Card Fair

Postcards are not the only thing you find in this fair.  Torn pages from old books/bibles, letters/deeds written by people long gone, surveyor's map, etc etc...... One thing in common though, you may not be aware of it but when you think about it, they are all PAPERS!!  This amazed me really.

With only the last few pounds I had, I got 2 advertising postcards from fountain pen makers and 2 postcards of the "Peak Tramway and Barracks, Hong Kong", of which one of them was written by a Frenchman probably to his girlfriend in France.  Imagine where this postcard had travelled and how it is connected to so many people.  Again, if there is such a physical search engine to travel through time returning all properties relating to one particular object, ...  oh perhaps too far fetched technically, we might as well just go to the Akashic Records to do the trick.

Here's a few more links of my postcard adventure:

• Postkarten shop in Cologne Germany I stumbled upon recently.
• Polaroid Postcard, a flickr group where people exchanging postcards in Polaroid format.  You gotta try, beautiful.
• Altered Postcard Art, use any postcard, alter it to suit your own artistic vision.

Hairspray and Bird Shit

Postcard to Okuyama san

Finally, I've always had great times doing these personal postcards using "spare time" during business trips and I'm not stopping as long as there is postal service available.  See Hairspray and Bird Shit, Birthday Postcard to Okuyama san.  God give me more time on earth!

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Entering Into His Fifth Year of Life

Entering 5th Year of His Life

Happy birthday to my son!  He is now 4 years old enough, entering his fifth year in life.  I truly believe other than what genes we gave him, the current him is really the past 4 years of who we are.  Somehow the formulas are imprinted there from our day to day interaction.  Now that his own decisions start also to play important roles of who he will become, it is going to be a whole new him next year.  Sleep tight birthday boy!

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Train of Thoughts - University 101

One comment from a fellow blogger ignited a series of thoughts.  One U2 song reference produced a series of connecting imagery.  Life is that simple, everything is so connected nobody ever taught you since kindergarden.  They mystery of life is a function of CONNECTION.  Dumb ass educators should start teaching connectivity to kids right away to develop their brains, causality, innovation, pattern recognition, exploration, ideas,... all came from connectivity.  Remember James Burke's Connections series?

Chinese Drama Mask Drawing

Original of species 2

Original of species

Play Child

milkboy2

My God, the physical level of Gaia is all too apparent we now see global effects of what we as generations of humanity did to our "body".  This corporeal revelation should've inspired millions to start observing and teaching the conscious and spiritual level of symbiotic nature of our universe.  Simply said, start teaching causality and connectivity will create a wave of creativity far more impactful than what this generation can imagine.  University 101?  Kindergarden 101.  My son, you will see this world so differently with this single tool!

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