Wipebook - A Portable Whiteboard

It is a stereotype, but engineers really do like whiteboards. Problem is, you can’t carry one around with you. Plus there’s still a few unenlightened employers who don’t provide whiteboards. Enter the Wipebook, a spiral-bound notebook made of whiteboard-like pages:

I normally carry a notebook for scratching out notes while talking to customers, sketching diagrams, working through problems, etc. I don’t archive these notes - most are just short-term things, and I shred them. Important stuff gets turned into OmniFocus tasks/emails/etc.

So the Wipebook looks perfect for me. My wife bought one for me recently, and I’ve started using it at work. So far, it’s working as expected. I can quickly scribble notes, sketch a diagram, make corrections, etc. When I’m done with it, I wipe the page down.

It’s not perfect - the pages don’t always wipe down perfectly, and obviously it gets bumped around in my bag. So it won’t last forever. But it’s a nice touch that I can open & close the bindings, so I can easily get rid of any pages that are too beaten up.

The pens have a small eraser on the end, but it’s only suitable for very minor corrections. I have a slightly larger (but still portable) eraser that works well. You’ll probably want to get something to clean it down properly once a week or so.

I have the lined version. They also have grid/blank/music/mixed versions. I’d probably get the mixed version next time. I’m also very tempted by the Mini, just to be a little more portable.

It will be interesting to look back in a year or so, to see if it’s changed my habits.

So far I’ve only had one real problem: I want to change the cover to this:

Unfortunately the Brocade cover is a fraction shorter. I might just do it anyway.