The Thing I Wish Existed When I Gave Birth Was Just Invented
Your gift fantasies probably change once you have kids
How many addresses do you suppose you have in your address book? I’m not talking about email addresses. I’m talking physical addresses.
Somewhere between your Filofax and your Palm Pilot, your physical addresses probably got lost. In other words, your iPhone or Droid has lots of cell numbers and Gmail addresses, but not many PO boxes, right?
So what happens when you want to send out birth announcements (or when you wanted to send out wedding invitations)? You sit around like a schmuck emailing or calling your friends and relatives for their addresses and then you type the addresses or copy and paste ad nauseum into some kind of Excel program in order to print out labels. And then the next time you have a kid (or the next time you get married) and you can’t find the list, you sit around like a schmuck again address-hunting and gathering for labels.
But now there’s this thing where you don’t have to do that and yet you still get the labels. It’s so titillating it should be considered mommy porn, only with a G-rating.
It’s new and it’s called Postable.
You sign up online (in a nanosecond) and email everyone in your address book (because you have everyone’s email address, remember?) with your own personalized web address (Postable.com/YourName) and ask them to take a nanosecond to fill in their details like their address, phone, email, birthday, and spouse’s name.
Then in a single click — so brilliant! — you can dump all the information into your iPhone, Gmail or Outlook address book. Or in a single click export the information onto an Excel spreadsheet. Or in a single click print out standard Avery address labels. If you get rid of your phone, your own personal (and free) Postable account lives online, so you can just do the same 1-click thing again to get all the information onto your new phone.
Postable is true Type-A (and B and C, actually) Mommy goodness. For moms like me who get seriously turned on by organization and time-saving tips, the site and its tool are a dream come true.
Think of all the time you could spend with your baby instead of sitting around gathering and typing addresses. One-click labels! No data entry! Think of those birth announcements. Think of those first birthday party invitations (if you’re sending them out in paper form, that is). Think of those new baby or first birthday present thank you notes (you should still send paper notes, I think).
You get the point. Now you just need to sign up.
Are you as excited about Postable as I am?
Photo credit: MorgueFile
No, I’m not really excited about it. If I am going to send something through the mail, I will put pen to paper and address the envelopes myself. If someone is going to send me something in the mail they don’t even bother to write on (a pre-printed card addressed by computer), they can save themselves even more time and take me off their spreadsheet.
@Grace — To each her own! But I’ll be thinking of your pen to paper with all of the free time I’ve earned printing my labels with a single click!
LOL!
Seems like a good idea, however, I totally agree with @Grace! I think the whole point of sending snail mail is the added attention you’re giving to the individuals. If all you’re doing is the mass mailing to begin with, REALLY save yourself time and scan/email your announcement. We all have our own way of staying in touch with the people in our lives
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but half the fun of mailing a real life card in the mail for someone to open with their own hands is addressing of the card, writing out the name of your loved one in your best hand. sticking on a sticker or whatever just isn’t the same. i agree with grace and kristin, if you’re going to bother mailing something i think you ought to be writing out the envelope yourself. if it’s too many people, perhaps cutting it down to those you really want to spend the time on is the answer. and personally i LOVED addressing my son’s birth announcements … going down the list of loved friends and family for those cards was even better than our wedding invitations … sigh …
I LOVED picking out birth announcements and thank you notes. Addressing envelopes by hand to my family and friends would have been torture!
I do like this idea and I actually did do a mail merge for my thank you cards at my wedding but I think I actually wrote out thank you notes by hand after being
badgered by my MIL from the day after the baby shower on. My thought process is that if you would actually be offended by not receiving an arbitrary note in the mail then I wish you wouldn’t send me a gift at all.
I don’t get the desire for hard-copy annoucements and thank you’s. I get those things in the mail, read them, then add then to the recycling bin. What a waste of money and paper on something that could easily be sent via email for free. I also resent the judgement sent my way because I think an email or a phone call or a thank you at the time I receive the gift ought to be enough.
No one pays attention to the envelope, I think what counts is the handwritten note in the card. This is a time saver and a great idea!
I agree with JQ. I didn’t do baby announcements because the ones I’ve received in the past (eventually) end up in the recycling. I put them on the fridge for a few months, then into a shoe box along with the family-photo Christmas cards, then eventually they get tossed.
Hey, I’m Scott from Postable. Just wanted to clear one thing up: while you can print out labels from our site, the main purpose of Postable is to make it really easy to gather contact information. It solves the problem of “I don’t seem to have anybody’s mailing address when I’d like to send them something.” Once you have the contact info, you can choose to use it in any way you wish- by all means, keep writing out cards in your handwriting! Postable saves you time in gathering mailing addresses; the rest is up to you.
Hope that helps clarify the purpose of the site. Feel free to reach out to me scott@postable.com if I can help answer any more questions. Thanks!
Just to let you know, this post seems a little bit weird from my android phone. Who knows perhaps its just my phone. Great article by the way. http://crossbodybagonline.blogspot.com/2012/08/ladies-purse-style-statement.html
After I start your Rss feed it appears to be a ton of junk, is the problem on my side? http://www.swomenshats.com/