Here are some simple Post-it Etiquettes to help each other digest, analyse and synthesize our vast data spread across hundreds of post-its!

1. Choose different colours of post-its for writing under different categories. If you run out of colours, tag them at the bottom with a code using a 0.5 mm blue pen.
2. Choose the same dimension and shape of post-its for working within the same category or task.
3. Use a black Sharpie pen to write on all the post-its.
4. Write between 3 and 10 words.
5. Write words of height around the size of your thumb’s nail.
6. For headers of categories during synthesis, choose a different dimension/shape/colour of post-its, but keep the style homogenous among the header post-its.

As we have faced this problem together over and over again at work, I recollect these are the top 10 blunders made by post-it writers working together within the same room:

1. Writing 1 word on the post-it – will lead to fatal blank in the brain. If you will try hard to fill up the blank, you will most often get it all wrong.
2. Squeezing in 10 lines of words on the post-it – will just merge with the wall it is pasted on.
3. Writing with 0.5mm tip on the post-it – all you will see is the beautiful colour of the post-it.
4. Using rainbow colour assortment of post-its within the same category – will cloud the blue sky and delay sunshine.
5. Writing words in small size on the post-it – will make them insignificant amongst the ones with big size text.
6. Writing with any colour pen on post-its within the same category – will make the black text post-its stand out because the post-its are coloured anyway.
7. Using random sizes of post-its within the same category – will make the big post-its hungry enough to eat the smaller ones.
8. Using non-homogenous post-it headers during synthesis across many categories – might cause the wrong post-its to land under wrong headers.
9. Abstract drawings on post-its – could cause serious miscommunication. Drawings in this case go best with clearly explained words.
10. Reading post-its from a very close distance – might cause your vision to go worse. You wouldn’t have had to do this if all of the above blunders were not committed.

This is taken from Post-it note for smooth digestion by Rasmi Kakde, see full post here.