Another "madeleine" episode...

[alexpgp]

While waiting for the Internet to come back yesterday (access using my Droid X's wireless router capability was nice, but too spotty to use for any length of time), I gathered up a bunch of push pins that've been accumulating and stuck them in a little group in an ordinary cork bulletin board.

I don't know what it was that triggered the memory, as colored push pins have been a ubiquitous (if very minor) part of my life for just about ever. And then yesterday, all of a sudden I am yanked back to my days at Plenum Publishing Corporation (which I've mentioned here and here, and featured more prominently - without mentioning names - here).

Perhaps it was the little group, or the colors, or the height above the ground, or some combination of factors, but I recalled the system I put together to keep track of the progress of journal segments as they passed through the various steps in the production process, the main phases of which were proofreading, typing, art, and press-checking.

There was even a color code. Green pins for segments with no issues. Yellow for those that required attention. You can guess what color identified segments that were critical (which typically meant: behind schedule).

What can I say? The system worked.

At a glance, I (or any other member of the department) could tell where things were, and how far individual "books" were from being "complete."

This raises a question: Can this old technique still find a use in the computerized 21st century?

* * *I've just under 1,800 source words left in the current project, with three PowerPoint presentations sitting in the wings. Grandkids are coming in a few minutes, though, so work is officially on hold.

Cheers...

Comments

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I would say absolutely this method has relevance in this day and age. My personal biggest buggaboo with the computer is that, once you look at something, it becomes buried by all the things you look at afterward. Keep in mind all the fictional people who use this very method. They spread out all their papers and look at them all at once. They rearrange things according to what they are related to. I'm thinking Michael Blomquist here (Stieg Larsson), Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton), and even Bosch. Color coding just makes it all that much more organized. I'm guessing plenty of non-fictional people do this, too and have been forever.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading your third "here" link, the one linked to your Jan 14, 2009 post. It was very interesting. I wonder how soon after that you did your second translation. I would guess that you might seriously think twice about jumping out of the frying pan one more time.

[connie]

I've never used this feature, but I think on my Mac I can add a background color to file names, "highlighting" them. So maybe that could be a computerized way to do the same kind of color-coded organizing.