Who knew we needed them?

Among the numerous Post its stuck to the edge of my computer monitor is one that says "post on Post it notes". I'm not sure when I stuck it there as it was partially hidden by a bunch of others with such exciting content as "Bread, laundry soap" and "jellyfish swarms"(?) and my personal favorite "COFFEE!!!!".

I think that, in some way, my eclectic collection of 3" yellow squares is pretty representative of Post it clusters the world over: random thoughts of varying importance jotted down hurriedly before they're forgotten and stuck to whatever is within arms reach. If you're like me most get posted and then forgotten anyway but hey, at least I look like I got it goin' on! So where did this mechanism for appearing like an active go-getter originate anyway? Well, as you may have guessed it's a product of the 80s. 

While the adhesive used on Post it Notes was originally developed in 1968 by 3M chemist Spencer Silver it languished for years without a real world application until one of Silver's colleagues came up with the idea of using it to attach bookmarks to his hymnal. A couple of years later 3M test marketed a product it called "Press 'n Peel" notes based on the concept but nobody gave them a second look. Finally after some more test marketing demonstrated the product might indeed find receptive customers the renamed Post it Notes hit the market for real on April 6, 1980. Work environments the world over were changed forever and more than three decades after their introduction I get to enjoy the pleasure of wondering what on earth might have caused me to post a note about jellyfish swarms.