In Praise of the Letts Diary

In Praise of the Letts Diary
by Dileep Rao

When the Palm handheld came out, I was among its first converts. I am an electronics/ technology lover. I love gadgets. Or at least I did. The Palm was wondrous. Even back in the day, I could sync it with my Powerbook with infrared technology. I was stoked...until it died and rebooted. "Hi," it said to me. "Welcome to Palm." Welcome to Palm? WTF? All my contacts were back on my computer and I was in New York. I grumbled but accepted it. Still, it was like an having an inkling that your mate was cheating on you. I could never fully trust the stupid Palm again.

Then its backlight would drain it to death. If I wanted to see an address, I couldn't see it very well in sunlight, but in the dark it glowed like a handheld lightbulb. One day I saw a friend of mine look up something in his Letts diary. I pulled it toward me and he saw the glint in my eye. He knew I had to have one. From that day, I've never stopped carrying one.

The Letts diary is, simply put, the perfect organizational device for everyday life. It can't die, it can't get drained, it's slim, easily transportable, cheap, highly useful and stylish to boot. No PDA can compete with its slim outline and old-school feel. All your numbers go in the back (it's a pleasure, actually, to write them in year after year, I'm not kidding), all your dates get written in ink on the day you have them. You can put post-its in there, customize the inside covers (crucial to maximizing your Letts) and use paper clips to keep the week straight. The latest version has beefed up to fifteen months, yet is still less than a half inch thick and rules my world.

I enjoy the renewal each summer (I carry the academic diary, it just fits my life and once you’re on a cycle...it continues). People who carry the diary know each other by sight. “Oh, you're in the club.” We nod at each other, look each others systems over. The ink and pencils. The post-its. The inside covers. Some people fold their pages in neat triangles to cancel them out. The diary, though, is even greater as a repository.

I always have notes and ideas that are slipped in the back. I put stamps in there, directions, whatever I need. I paste in important pages or cuttings. Plus, there are plenty of blank note pages and useful information (conversions, etc.)

Technology is a good thing. I love when it makes my life better, or even just thrills me. But for my addresses and contact numbers, the pen and paper are hard to beat. And in that world, the Letts diary is simply head and shoulders over Day Runner or any of the other major brands. They're notoriously hard to find (they're British). If you start, however, you will never go back. I promise.

Dileep can be reached at dileep@babblog.com.