Early this year, Myke Hurley and CGP Grey released a new product to their Cortex Band line; the SideKick notepad. I bought it to be supportive of their efforts as well as for future use. It sat on my desk for months as I looked at it each day and thought, “What will your use case be?” Recently, my father stared experiencing health issues that required he go to the hospital. I had to travel to be with him and my brother. I knew that while he was in the hospital I would need something to take notes in while my brother and I sat with him. Enter the SideKick notepad.

The pages of the notepad have a bit of structure. There is a space for the date located at the top lefthand corner of each page. A much longer rectangular space is centered in the middle of the page with a smaller box next to it, and space to create lists on the righthand side.

The picture below shows how I used the notepad while at the hospital and after we got my father settled back at home. Using the notepad was both comforting (due to the fact that I was using a product created by two individuals I admire on multiple levels) as well as functional (in that it was helping me get through emotionally and physically exhausting, long days in an organized manner).