I was looking around for a thoughtless act and found one right in my backpack. You can see that the notebook, which I take notes in for lectures, has been “thoughtlessly” used to put together in one place papers related to that class and to protect the papers. The practice is not particularly effective as the stack has become rather thick, the edges of the paper are frayed, and the papers don’t look particularly well-organized.

What might an effective solution look like? We see some notebooks with paper pockets for notes, a more extreme solution might be to attach fold-out flaps to the last page or an actual envelope type folder to the back of the notebook to tuck notes into the back. Alternately, to make the notebook significantly larger than A4 would also help protect the edges of the page.

A way to compel the user *not* to commit the thoughtless act might be to make the notebook too small to wedge papers in, forcing the user to bring an extra folder.