Friday, June 22nd, 2007...1:18 am
A Hack for Coffee Lovers…
I just bought a couple of pounds of coffee from my favorite coffee place downtown yesterday. I have been quite dissatisfied with the canisters I have been using to store my whole beans. They did not do a good job of keeping moisture in the air…away from the beans.
Tonight my family made a Target run. I had added “coffee canisters” on my Target shopping list in the BlackBerry (yes…that is a GTD thing). I made a pretty neat find. I was able to find a canister from simplehuman (yes…the company’s name IS one word) that was stainless. It had a clear plastic top. A latch seals the coffee air tight.
The thought hit me later…if I used dry erase marker on the clear plastic top to label my coffee, I could erase it later if I bought a pound of another kind of coffee…for example replaced House with Creme Brulee.
Pretty cool way to make sure I do not grab the wrong beans…or should I say…the ones I did NOT mean to grab. And it is better than changing out labels from a label maker every time I decide to try a new bean.
6 Comments
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:26 am
I do something similar: I re-use Illy canisters since they’re both air- and light-tight, so that I don’t open and re-open the 40 oz Starbucks bag.
I hadn’t thought about the dry-erase marker trick, though, so I’ve been using labels from the labelmaker.
Nice trick!
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
How do you set up your shopping lists on the BB? I’ve missed Handyshopper since switching from the Palm to BB. I haven’t quite got the list thing down yet.
Thanks,
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
@Brad…that one hit me after I got home with them. My wife has a magnetic marker board she has mounted inside of the pantry that she puts a disc magnet up next to an item that needs to go on the shopping list. I was sitting in the kitchen as she opened that door…and the light went on in my head.
@Ian…great question. I use a Dell notebook for work. So I am not a mac user. I simply have a shopping list in my Outlook notes function that I can sync with my BBerry. So really I am doing most of my listing in Outlook.
Now I do wish there could be a list manager for BBerry that is more like ListPro. However, if I lose the ability to sync and edit from Outlook (or anywhere on my notebook), then it really won’t work for me.
June 30th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I use the LabelOnce labels. It’s great because they work with a fine tip permanent marker, and you erase when you put something new in them. Very cool! I have them on everything from plastic food containers to file folders. I keep the pen and eraser in a magnetic pocket by the fridge. Great stuff!
August 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I think it’s a great idea BUT those markers wipe off fairly easily (on everything except white boards…grrrr)….
What about using a label maker or a removable blank label and writing the name on that -that way when you get new coffee just slap a new label on…
But oooh now I’m going to have to find those containers…
September 26th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I use black wax pencils to label in the kitchen and pantry. They wipe off with a paper towel, or a bit of windex, and don’t disappear as easily as a dry erase marker. They are also useful in the car; you can write a quick note to yourself on the window without digging for paper and pen.
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