Sheet Protectors: Why They Need to be Redesigned

Have you ever been using a product and just thought that the design is flawed and needs to be fixed?! That has happened to me many times actually, my most recent find was sheet protectors.

Why?

Because they stick out, and not just a little bit. Almost a WHOLE INCH!

Now, why is this a bad thing you say? Well...

I bought these sheet protectors for my planner; for the month pages, and the pages that don't need to be written on. I put them in all excited, thinking "Yay, they will be protected forever!" But no, they stuck out and when I would close my planner, the first few sheet protectors got all bent and folded. Then the second problem was thinking about dividers, now how much longer did I have to make the dividers for them to be visible? Too long, they would be destroyed when lugging around my planner in my bag.

Not wanting to be discouraged (and also not wanting to waste the money I just used to buy these), I came up with a plan: cutting off the pre-made holes and then punching holes in the actual sheet protector and sliding a hole punched sheet into there. I thought my idea was just brilliant, wondering why no one had come up with this solution!

Now punching holes in the sheet protector was a mission in itself. It is flimsy and stretchy, so you could just imagine. When the moment came to put my page inside, guess what happened? The holes didn't line up. I was furious! Because of maybe a centimeter of space that is at the bottom, and since I'm OCD, this didn't work. I could have cut off the bottom and tried again, but I was done with that.

I came up with a second solution: using the sheet protectors as dividers! WA-LA! It wasn't a perfect idea but it worked. I didn't have to do any cutting, pasting, taping, or measuring to make actual dividers. I placed labels on the sides, and since they are see through, you can see all the other labels. I was also thinking if I ever had a stray papers lying around, they would be the perfect place to put them, in an organized fashion.

Don't get me wrong, the first few sheet protectors still get bent, but there aren't any pages in there so I didn't really care. I used my sheet protectors, I made dividers... it was a win/win.

Do you use sheet protectors in your planner? 

Because I would really like to know how other people have solved this problem!

Thank you all for reading! :)