Whiteboard thoughts…

October 28, 2024

I became a fan of whiteboards late in my career. With the flood of information which came our way daily with the expansion of electronic media in all forms, whiteboards, Post-it notes, a Sharpie, and Dry Erase markers became a great way for me to sort out and organize ideas and information. Add in a digital camera, I could take a snapshot of the final product and formalize it back at my desktop. I always wished for a “whiteboard” type of application to simplify this sort and organizing problem, but we were stuck with what the company I worked for offered as standard software. And though you could make crude forms of a digital whiteboard app out of some of the standard office applications, they didn’t quite offer the quickness, spontaneity, nor freedom that erasable inks, sticky paper, and smooth white surfaces did. I was always fighting technology limitations.

I retired from my career job about eight years ago. I still occasionally need to sort my mind from today’s flood of information. And until recently I hadn’t really tried any new software apps to help with that. Instead, what worked for me was to add erasable wall paper to my office walls, and go back to the sticky note and handwriting to sort out my mind.

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One area of my life where I use the Post-it note process commonly is for weekly meal planning. I typically plan 7-10 days out. Once planned out, I create a simple weekly menu schedule and update my shopping list for the week.

I still use a paper shopping list. I just find it easier to bring along a felt pen and cross off the items as I pick each one. I’ve found trying to use a digital checklist on my phone is too cumbersome. I need one hand to hold the phone, a second to push the digital list’s check off buttons, my third hand to hold the basket and my fourth to transfer a product from the shelf to my basket.

My old method of meal planning was to create a magnetic white board ”calendar” on my refrigerator’s freezer door, using a permanent Sharpie out lined grid of seven columns and five rows. I then marked each column with first initial of the day of the week and used 2”x2” Post-it notes to plan out meals for the next week or two.

Since I tend to have a limited set of rotating meals, I reused a lot of these Post-it notes each week. I stored a lot of the unused sticky labels on the wall of my home office. It became its own cluttered mess.

Last night, while watching a Sunday night football game, I pulled out my rarely used iPad and played around with Apple’s Freeform app. I had heard of new whiteboard apps, which appeared more commonly during the pandemic. From pre-pandemic experience with similar apps, I had my doubts. But as I played around with Freeform last night, I realized this could be a terrific method going forward for planning my meals in the future.

A sample of my initial take on this app is shown below.

On the left is my monthly grid layout of seven (7) columns by five (5) rows. Freeform auto-aligns and sizes the spacing as you add each electronic note. On the right is the collections of electronic notes for my main meals. This will grow with time. I have a much broader scope of meals. But, for starters, it gives an idea how this application can be used. It is a simple matter of dragging or copying one of the gray Main Dish notes over the the calendar as you build out the week’s meal plan.

I am only getting started and sometimes new ideas take time to grab hold. And often they never do as one encounters unanticipated issues. But I really am impressed with how this whiteboard application works and appears on a full screen display.

I used it this morning to build my Weekly Menu list and this week’s grocery shopping lists. It was much easier than running to the kitchen to write down or photograph all of the Post-it notes. It will also be nice to clean up my refrigerator front and clear off my office walls from sticky paper notes.