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Your Amazon wishlist when you really need it

If you’re like me, a trip to a record or book store often results in a complete brain fart; I can’t remember why I’m there, what I want, or what I potentially might have wanted. It’s farcical, and it often leads to stupid impulse buying instead of picking up what I’d really needed.

I get around this parietal deficiency by using my Amazon wish list as a parking lot for some of the books and records I want to buy (no, I don’t want you to buy me anything; I’m just showing you).

Then, evey month or so, I print out and re-stash a miniature version of the list in my notebook so I’m always up to date when I’m out of the house and happen by a store.

So try this:

  1. Go to your Amazon wishlist and click the “Compact View link under “My View.”
  2. Resize the width of the browser window until all the columns you find most useful are a comfortably small width (definitely less than 6 or 8 inches, optimally). If your browser lets you, you can also reduce the on-screen type size to get things even smaller.
  3. Print the page
  4. Grab your safety scissors, and cut out just the columns you need in order to find or request the items in a real-life store (Title and Author should do, although I also like to know what Amazon charges, just for comparison)
  5. Fold up the cut-out section and stick it in the pocket of your backpack, purse, or whatever you always have with you on the road

At the right resizing in Safari, then trimmed and folded, the “Title,” “Author,” and “Price” columns fit exactly into the back folder pocket of a mini-Moleskine. Swish.

wish list in a moleskine

Go forth and consume intelligently.


7 Comments

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Kosta's picture

Killer tip, I've been doing...

Killer tip, I’ve been doing this a while, try putting it into excel and download to a treo…

Joshua Rafofsky's picture

You can always just sync...

You can always just sync it to your PalmPilot via AvantGo, or bookmark it in your PDA’s browser. I’ve got a Treo too, and this provides me with a “live” link to the current wish-list, not just a printout from a few weeks ago.

Coupled with PalmPrices (a free Palm app that lets users with wireless devices determine prices of things by the UPC, ISBN or model number) it’s an unbeatable combination to have when traveling or shopping.

Andrei Popov's picture

There used to be a...

There used to be a time when Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk were almost interchangable (one could simply replace .com with .co.uk and get all the same stuff, just different prices (or almost so)). Not any more — compact view for the wish list is not available in Europe :(

vm's picture

I actually had a friend...

I actually had a friend who would keep a notebook on her coffee table and write down names of movies she wanted to see when she liked the ads on TV. AND THEN cross them off when she watched them. I take a small moleskin with me to the video store now and note the “interesting” ones that are new so when I go back I can request them. (as I usually only have time to watch one or two over a weekend) Or I note the “recommendations” of friends and family for movies. I’m horrible with names and this works wonderfully for me.

V.Macphereson

J. Beard's picture

Not exactly the same thing,...

Not exactly the same thing, but my friend turned me on to clipping and pasting promising titles from the online New York Times “New on Video” section into my Netflix queue. If you add a weekly recurring reminder on your desktop calendar, you forestall the mild sadness of the empty queue.

Sumana's picture

And in case you don't...

And in case you don’t want to do the resizing yourself:

http://www.crummy.com/software/PocketWisherman/

dave's picture

I send myself an email...

I send myself an email of the link and look at on my Blackberry when I’m in the store. …dave

 
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