Do It Yourself

While DIYing has many upsides, the accumulation of stuff is none of them. At least not for me. Don't get me wrong: I love tools, I love finding 'just the right thing' in my stash and I hate being wasteful and throwing stuff away that might serve another purpose. But in particular when renting and/or living in a small space, it can be hard to keep everything (organised). So you have to deal with all that 'stuff' in some way.

TL;DR I bought a Phomemo label printer and put labels on my stuff. This is not about some revolutionary organization system, but rather some thoughts and realizations, pros and cons, ideas and learnings I had while trying to find a labeling solution.

The requirements

Labeling has to be

• easily readable
• cheap
• quick

The options

Like too much of the consumer hardware nowadays, label printers experienced varying degrees of enshittification within the past years. Also they only have a very specific use (label printing that is), which I like to avoid if possible. That's why I spent quite some time trying to come up with an alternative to just buying a label printer.

Hand writing

Pretty obvious option: Just buy some labels and write by hand. Cheap, quick, no equipment required. I hate my handwriting. And I can't draw QR codes (which I surely will totally require and make use of in the future).

'Normal' printer

There are A4 label sheets to buy out there and printers for sure produce the best image quality. But it comes with other issues. Mainly printers being mortal enemies with humans. Also you would have to make sure to swap the paper, to avoid printing your next <whatever people print these days> on sticker paper. Also there is that thing with ink, which might be the first enshittified product to ever exist. I have done this before (not with dedicated label paper though) and it is a decent solution. However I consider my current labelling needs to be too immediate. When I buy new hardware, it needs a label right away. Otherwise it will end up unorganised forever.

3D printer/pen plotter

If I had a 3D printer, I would just have printed a pen attachment for it. However I don't have one. I really like the look of the AxiDraw pen plotter, but they really aren't cheap. Plus take up more space than a label printer, while still only doing one thing.

Label printer

duhh. They use special paper so no ink is required, but this is also where the problems come in. More and more companies embed NFC chips or other means of identification into their paper rolls, as to make sure you only use 'the good stuff'. There's hacks around it, there are companies that don't do it atm (Zebra and Rollo have been pointed out to me, but make sure to do your own research. Also watch out: These are pricy enterprise printers). Then there is also the app/cloud/whatever. Nothing shouts e-waste like a machine that relies on some closed up app to function. Again there are workarounds. I recommend to check out the thermal-printer topic on github.

I bought a Phomemo. It accepts any paper and I found an open source app that lets me print from the browser. The phone app is also functional without logging into anything, but it contains some 'pay2win' features and more than one 'AI enhancement' button if you care for that (or care for not having that). It does not require internet access, but connects via bluetooth.

The résumé

Now here comes a twist that I did not expect when I started writing this:

I don't need a label printer. Rarely do I buy something in an impulse, so the idea of a label printer had been in my head for months and years even - I really thought all that time that I need one. Having one made me realise: I don't! I don't print shipping labels (frequently) nor QR-codes. I don't even print fancy labels, since I realised that it's too much effort (and they look bad when printed with a thermal printer anyway). I don't want another app on my phone or more screen time while I'm in the workshop.

I'll keep a roll of the label paper, put it in a box with a decent pen and a ruler. Maybe find one of those template cards for technical drawings some day... It's fine. Even if this does not serve anyone else, it served me in figuring this out.

The labels (Bonus)

For the first labels I made, I went way overboard. I found these templates and started designing in inkscape. I really liked the resulting labels, for some I even added colour coding that fit my wrenches.

The downside was the same as with the 'normal' printer approach: I never took time to make new ones. So everything I newly acquired never got a label. Should I ever own a stash of all the hardware I can imagine, I will make more of those. Or I'll code an app that makes designing less manual. Until then it's just too inconvenient to update.

My latest approach is to just write down all the specs I can't instantly tell when glossing over a box of hardware. So for a woodscrew that might be the drive type, the length, the thickness and the material. I will be able to see that it's a woodscrew, what shape the head is, and also if it's self tapping or whatever. So far the theory, as to not overload the label. And that makes it super quick to produce the label - with or without printer.

Honorable mention of gridfinity-label-generator, which pretty much does this. But also has some nice images if you care for that.