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How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

blog.alexwendland.com

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Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#101

Post by m463 »

tombert wrote: post #21

I just end up buying enough of the item to be within arms reach of nearly anywhere I'm likely to use it. I used to never be able to find a screwdriver when I needed it, so now I have seven screwdrivers: three regular ratcheting, three stubby ratcheting, and a ratcheting one that lives in my pocket. I keep a regular ratcheting on my desk, in my living room, and in my bedroom, which are the only places I would realisti…

I have a copy of little kit several places:

It contains:

- sharpie

- pen: https://amazon.com/dp/B005Y0T8C2

- postit full-stick notes pad

- cutter of all: https://amazon.com/dp/B000VYOISU

- opener of all the things: https://amazon.com/dp/B0017DGTSG

- diagonal cutter - any decent, but I like klein: https://amazon.com/dp/B0000302W8

at first I questioned myself duplicating stuff. Was I being a hoarder? But honestly, it has paid off 1000x

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#102

Post by cranium »

Designing intentionally how you organize everyday stuff is difficult but way worth the effort – it's one of those things you regret not doing earlier. Eg. key holder, grocery list 1) with its dedicated pen attached by a string, 2) next to the fridge (strings are nice to keep scissors in their place, too), ...

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#104

Post by m463 »

tonymet wrote: post #3

Best cleaning / organizational tip I’ve learned : everything out of place goes into a tote. Every day shuttle the tote around the house to deposit the items in their rightful place. This reduces reorganizing to linear time

can you go around the house filling the tote? :)

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#105

Post by m463 »

daemonologist wrote: post #44
treetalker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but where does the tote live? It’s mobile and might not be where I need it when I need it. Then I go looking for it, and all of a sudden I have two problems and have difficulty getting back to what I was doing in the first place. :-)

I'm afraid the only remaining option is to wear a backpack 24/7 and reenact your favorite inventory management RPG.

did I feed the cows?

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#106

Post by wiether »

graposaymaname wrote: post #77
treflop wrote: post #75

I used to lose stuff and I also grew up in a hoarder house. I ended up having a place for everything as mentioned in the article. In the last 10 years, I have not actually lost a single thing. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I also haven’t lost a single sock, which is really where it matters. (I do match up my socks every time right after I do laundry tho.) There was one time I couldn’t find a tool and I was afr…

More intrigued about the socks part, how did you solve it? I’ve lost enough to understand that there’s something clearly wrong about the way I deal with them.

I am intrigued about people losing socks because it never happened to me.

My guess is that people using a dryer are probably more prone to be victims of this.

How I do things is: - put dirty clothes in the dirty clothes bag as soon as I undress - put clothes by type in a laundry bag before washing them - hanging clean clothes to dry

The last part is probably the most important, because if you hang an odd number of socks, you know there's an issue so you'll look for the missing one. And the laundry bags will avoid you having socks stuck in pants/trousers.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#107

Post by alfiedotwtf »

Getting Things Done’s “In-Tray” but for real life items.

As for take-off points, I use the doorway of every room I’m currently in… seems counterintuitive, but by dumping things in a doorway, you’re deliberately making it annoying to leave the room, so when you do need to leave the room, pick it up and either pack it away right now or dump it in /that/ room’s In-Tray.

So each room effectively has an In-Tray and an Out-Tray, but instead of yet another physical item you need to buy or at least take up space, the doorway will always be there!

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#108

Post by alfiedotwtf »

graposaymaname wrote: post #77
treflop wrote: post #75

I used to lose stuff and I also grew up in a hoarder house. I ended up having a place for everything as mentioned in the article. In the last 10 years, I have not actually lost a single thing. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I also haven’t lost a single sock, which is really where it matters. (I do match up my socks every time right after I do laundry tho.) There was one time I couldn’t find a tool and I was afr…

More intrigued about the socks part, how did you solve it? I’ve lost enough to understand that there’s something clearly wrong about the way I deal with them.

I solved my socks issue once and for-all when I moved out of home - I bought 10 pairs of the exact same sock so that you can never mix a pair up by mistake. Over the years as they either get holes or stretch to much, I replace it with a new pair of the exactly item

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#109

Post by TeMPOraL »

loopdoend wrote: post #88
graposaymaname wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More intrigued about the socks part, how did you solve it? I’ve lost enough to understand that there’s something clearly wrong about the way I deal with them.

Socks can end up stuck in a pair of shorts (if you mix laundry) only to fall out somewhere in the streets if you're not paying attention.

How do you get from drying to storing to picking and wearing a pair of shorts without noticing there's a sock stuck inside? I could maybe buy it in case of some loose long pants, but with shorts, you can literally see the entire inside surface when you're lifting them to wear.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#110

Post by alfiedotwtf »

Having OCD, it’s always great when posts like these appear, because you get to see everyone else who has OCD share their highly-optimised systems of organisation so you can update your personal methods.

It’s almost like these type of posts are Emacs posts and the entire comment section is full of people sharing their unit.el snippets :)

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