It isn't often a day goes by without someone not using the humble Post-It note, whether that be a hardworking (or procrastinating!) student or a corporate office minion. Despite all the developments in technology that make our lives easier,  the Post-It note still remains a prominent desktop mate for us to go about our everyday business.

Few would give a passing thought to who we can thank for the sticky yellow pieces of paper, so if it wasn't Romy and Michelle who attempted to pass themselves off as the inventor, who was?

How Did the Invention Occur?

Like many other origin tales, this was a happy accident:

It was the year 1968. Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M Company, was busy working to develop a strong adhesive. Ironically, he ended up inventing a one of a kind adhesive that, whilst sticky, could be reused.

But would people be interested in such a glue? This was something that Dr. Silver faced for years, promoting it as a "solution without a problem"

As it so happens, such a"problem would be found by his colleague Art Fry in 1977, who was continually frustrated when his bookmarks kept falling out.

The initial product launch was not an initial success that one might hope for, but like many other things, persistence ended up being the key. 3M eventually issued free samples to their consumers to show how useful it was, and upon a 94% response rate to people buying the product, was relaunched as "Post Its" in 1979. They would soon be sold across the United States and Canada and Europe.

Post Its & Promotional Post Its as we know Today!

The rest, as they say, is history, and the Post It note, in a true testament to their versatility, now comes in a wide variety of sizes and colours and is available in more than 150 countries.

As it so happens, the iconic canary colour that people associate post it notes was also a stroke of chance: It happened that yellow scrap paper  was the only thing they had available at the time!

Images first seen on website: https://au.pinterest.com/pin/199565827217013401/

Reference for post it inventor, first seen on website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-it_note