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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

#161

Post by chrisweekly »

leokennis wrote: post #89
treetalker wrote: post #31

My approach is to have separate “take-off” points near the entrance/exit of each room. Example: If I’m in my home office and find that some things need to go to the living room and some to the kitchen, I simply queue them to take off instead of taking a trip every time I realize an item needs to go. Then when I take a coffee break, I’ll grab all the items; drop the living-room items off on the way to the kitchen, and…

This is a good idea, as is the idea in the article. The basic requisite however is a desire to not lose stuff. My wife always loses track of her EarPods. My oldest kid always loses his pocket knife. I could have 20 holding pens in the house and they'd still lose their stuff, since the idea that you have to exert even a minor amount of effort by putting stuff in its place to save yourself much more searching effort ,…

A tip that's helped me: when you finally find the thing you misplaced, and are done with it, don't put it back where you found it, put it in the place where you first looked.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#162

Post by lostlogin »

graftak wrote: post #70
TeMPOraL wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I ended up with three boxes ful of infrequently used items that were supposed to find their place for a year now... :/.

We throw everything out (to thrift stores if possible) after a year of no use. Has bitten us almost never and when it has it’s usually something useless to someone else too (cheap to replace).

This seems like the ‘cable storage’ problem many people I know suffer from.

All spare cable go in a place. You never use them. But if you throw away that mini dvi cable or that display port one, you’ll need it tomorrow.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#163

Post by ta988 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #25
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…

https://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/90/ygg_ask.png

https://what-if.xkcd.com/90/

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#164

Post by bubblebeard »

Aeolun wrote: post #132
pipes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, same here, my wife stacks stuff in any available free space, anywhere in the house.

It’s fine for stuff that has a fixed spot in the kitchen or bathroom, but documents, mail, jewelry or any kind of tech just disappears everywhere.

Quite so. It’s always an adventure when sorting through these stacks. Never know what one might find.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#165

Post by lostlogin »

fire_lake wrote: post #129
fnord77 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my car keys cost $350 each

Perfect example of anti-progress in the modern world.

My parents had a Mark 2 Ford Escort. My mum came home in someone else’s car once, as it looked similar and the key worked in it.

Mazda 323’s used to open each other too, and also Ford Lazers. These problems don’t seem to happen anymore, but at some cost.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#166

Post by coldpie »

gleenn wrote: post #96

I love physical algorithms and data structures in every day life. My little computer science brain is simple but if I can remember small tricks, particularly with the arrangement of everyday things, I find joy somehow. A couple of my favorites are like if I need to remember to do something in the groggy morning, I put either my wallet or keys wrapped around something weird. When I awaken and go to find those items, I…

> A couple of my favorites are like if I need to remember to do something in the groggy morning, I put either my wallet or keys wrapped around something weird. When I awaken and go to find those items, I am awoken to the specific thing to remember to do or bring.

Oh man I love this technique. I use it all the time. One morning when I was running late and had to fly out the door or else miss the bus, I threw the toothbrush I just finished using in the middle of the floor in front of the door as I ran through through the room. Got home 10 hours later and "why TF is my toothbrush in the middle of the living room? ... Oh yeah I need to pay the eye doctor bill." Works great, I love it.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#168

Post by codazoda »

I've had trouble getting this to work but I do have one addition that might help people who can make this work or partially work.

I have a closet full of clear plastic shoe boxes with labels on them. Labels like First Aid, Remotes, Ribbons, Pens/Pencils, etc.

When you need to put something away, put it in the shoe box.

Often, someone will say, "Where's the lighter?" and I'll respond, "in the closet". Happens nearly daily now.

The problem I have is that sometimes I'm too tired to put my thing in the holding pen. For keys, we have a key holder. But sometimes I don't realize I have keys in my pocket until bed time and I just empty them onto my night stand. Even walking across the room feels like too much. "I'll put them away tomorrow", I think to myself.

In any case, it's a helpful set of routines, I just find I don't ALWAYS stick to it.

Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens

#170

Post by kayodelycaon »

leokennis wrote: post #89
treetalker wrote: post #31

My approach is to have separate “take-off” points near the entrance/exit of each room. Example: If I’m in my home office and find that some things need to go to the living room and some to the kitchen, I simply queue them to take off instead of taking a trip every time I realize an item needs to go. Then when I take a coffee break, I’ll grab all the items; drop the living-room items off on the way to the kitchen, and…

This is a good idea, as is the idea in the article. The basic requisite however is a desire to not lose stuff. My wife always loses track of her EarPods. My oldest kid always loses his pocket knife. I could have 20 holding pens in the house and they'd still lose their stuff, since the idea that you have to exert even a minor amount of effort by putting stuff in its place to save yourself much more searching effort ,…

I really do not like the assumption people don’t do something because they don’t want to it.

I really want to make the system work reliably but I can’t. I’ve spent 30+ years trying to make things work. They just don’t.

It works when I have planned to do things ahead of time, but I can’t get my brain to remember to do it when interrupted, the attention shift doesn’t trigger “callbacks” or “publish events”. This is a fundamental prerequisite to make this work.

People’s who can do this will have difficulty not understanding people who can’t.

This same problem applies to “thinking before I speak”. I can’t do that. People think I can because I don’t make the same mistakes by rote learning what not to say in specific situations. I can’t anticipate new mistakes or generalize previous ones.

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