I don’t know about you, but I usually have two or three pens floating around on my desk. But do you think I can find one when I need to? The phone rings, I need to write down a number, where’s a pen? I saw one here just before. I lift sheets of paper, I look under my mouse, I stand up and look on the floor. No pen. I tell the other person on the end of the line “Hang on. Just gotta get a pen.” I rush to the kitchen grabbing a crayon that one of the kids has left lying around. Sound familiar?
What about a mug, or a cup, or a tin to hold your pens you ask. I’ve tried that. Doesn’t work. It becomes a hold-all for just about every small thing that graces my desk top. I have a photo of me sitting at my desk. To one side you can see my ‘Gore 4 Prez’ mug I was currently using as my pen holder. In it you can see about ten pens of all types and colors, a ruler, two pairs of scissors, a make-up brush, a fake flower, a feather and my iPod mini. And that’s just what’s visible in the photo. Inside the mug, going by past experience, would have been erasers, a myriad of paperclips, buttons, coins, dice, staples and perhaps even a Barbie head. Not to forget the dust of course. Containers as pen holders? Not for me.
Onto my clever idea then. Mid afternoon most days I have a healthy snack. Usually it’s a banana. So quite regularly I have a banana sitting on my desk. One day I was peeved off with someone or something and stabbed my pen into the banana. That gave me the idea. And here it is:
How to make your own banana pen holder:
1. Stick pen lids into your banana.
2. Place your pens in the lids.
3. Use as your pen holder until you decide to eat banana.
Upsides: Easy to make. Pens are easy to find. 100% recyclable. It’s a great talking point.
Downsides: Doesn’t last longer than a day (less really). You have to eat a banana with holes in it. Once eaten you lose your pen holder.
So there you have it. An ingenious (IMHO) solution to a problem. It’s a life hack with flavor.
This is a STUPID idea. There are lots of fruits that would last a LOT longer. Take a pomegranate for instance. With one of those your pen holder could last for weeks instead of hours. Do you really want fruit flies around your workspace anyway? And the pomegranate has those self-contained little jewels of fruit, which you could snack on as needed without exposing the rest of the fruit to the air, which only makes the rotting set in faster. Plus pomegranates remind me of belly dancers, which is always nice.
I like the idea of this site and all, but if you guys can’t get serious about thinking these suggestion through a little more, I might…I don’t know…it’ll really, really bug me though. I almost think you come up with these stupid hacks because they create problems you can come up with still other hacks for. Next thing you know you’ll be pawning off hacks for how to corral fruit flies with a HabiTrail so they don’t get in your nose while you work.
Pull it together. What kind of operation is this anyway?
And the word you want is conversation piece, NOT talking point. Gawd!
Sorry BudW, but the stupid ideas must be contagious. Pomegranate? The last time I saw one of those was in my dead grandmothers hand. Only dead grandmothers eat Pomegranates. How’s that for a talking point?
I use a live hedgehog to store my pens. It moves around while I’m away from my desk, but the snuffling noise always makes it easy to locate.
What happened to step 2?
@Annette: Well that’s a little reactive and rude for someone from a self-improvement site.
AND I’ll bite. What happened to your grandmother while she was holding a pomegranate? And even though you were a bit snotty with me, I’m not going to go for the obvious jokes that come to mind. I’ll respect your grandma. But only because it’s your grandma.
@Crystal: Thanks, I fixed it.
@BudW: I apologize. I just see the word pomegranate and my blood starts to boil. My Gran died trying to shot-put a pomegranate over the Berlin wall in 1983. She slipped on a missed previous attempt, and hit her head on a coconut. The Germans still called it ‘The Great Granatapfel Event’.