Organizing the chaos of lists

I had mentioned in a previous post that I stay organized by making lists galore. I had confessed that I was a serial list maker. Well, as of late my list making has gone into the over zealous area. Now that I'm getting projects done, more project ideas are flooding my brain. At first I was writing all my ideas down in a tiny notebook that I was carrying around with me everywhere in my handbag, but as the days went by that little notebook started to fall apart - scrap paper, Post-It notes, and receipts sliding out all over the place. I knew I needed a new method of organization to take care of this problem.

After perusing several Japanese websites (and not knowing what in the world these sites are saying), and Japanese craft books and magazines (via eBay...love sellers that post photos of what's in the books and mags), I saw numerous variations of a notepad holder. I had also Googled "notepad holder" and scrolled through all the images that came up. After much thought and measuring, I decided to use these 2 as an example for my own:

And after an hour, this is my end product:
The inside:
I don't really care for the stabilizer that I had used, I think it was too thick and bulky. Luckily you can't really tell from these photos (phew!), but I can see where they bulge out. I don't know the name of the stabilizer that I had used, it was in my stash. I think the next attempt I'll try out the Flexi Firm stabilizer and see how that works out. I also forgot to sew in the pen holder...I was going to use this really cool, wide ribbon that I had but in my sewing haste it fell off my sewing machine table and so I had completely forgotten about it until it was too late. This holder fits a 5"x 7" notepad, so I'm thinking of trying to make a standard 8.5"x11" notepad holder, and maybe a mini 4"x 6" version too.

I'm also thinking that I should've added more pockets, as I can see the main pocket filling up quite fast. Another thing I'm going to change - the size of the little pocket that is meant to hold business cards. I didn't make it long enough, and so I would have to store the cards lengthwise up, and who knows if I would be putting business cards in there anyways? So I think I'm going to make the little pocket big enough to hold a stack of Post-Its.

Anyhoo, I've talked enough about this. Back to the drawing board with this one...now to go sew some more!