Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
171–180 of 282 posts
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#172Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#173I'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 d…
The majority is computer parts and cables (e.g., "USB Cables", "USB and Other Chargers", "Video Cables").
Every few years, I go through and cull (e.g., give away enough misc. apartment repair screws/etc. that what I keep fits into one shoebox rather than two, and give away those old-technology cables that I'm 99% sure I'll never need, while keeping 2 VGA cables that I still use for servers).
The Sterilite clear plastic shoeboxes are sold at some stores for about a dollar each.
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#174I 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…
I put things in my shoes. Then I remember when it’s time to leave!
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#175I 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…
A decade ago, I bought a bucket of 25 nail clippers. My wife was initially skeptical, but over the next few years, grew to appreciate the low demands of the system: Need a nail clipper? Go to the bucket. See a nail clipper in a weird place? Put it in the bucket, if you feel like it and have the time. Otherwise, don't worry about it. There'll be one in the bucket when you need it.
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#176My 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 ,…
If you are the type of person to intensively multitask, to occupy your short-term memory with different trains of thought in a holding pattern, you will tend to sacrifice command skills - if your memory is already busy reading and writing on all available channels, it isn't going to pop up "You have something in the oven" or "You were holding a pen a minute ago and you set it down on the second tier of the brown bookshelf" or "You need to get the kid from school". The internet & smartphone era has unlocked a degree of hyperstimulus that can veer into the pathological for those of us with our brains wired a certain way.
This is also a thing if you're doing things at a 'normal' degree of focus but your memory is impaired (number of operational channels reduced) in some other fashion, through age-related cognitive decline or some types of medication or chronic sleep deprivation or a TBI.
This is the ADD trait. We are chronically late to important events, we lose things all the time, we frequently accumulate a thousand browser tabs, we jump from thing to thing as they come up. Forming subconscious routines is difficult, and when we do it, we often allocate them only the barest muscle memory - I lock my car regardless of whether it's already locked or should be locked (bringing in groceries) because my macro for leaving the car is to lock it. There are pros and there are cons to this cognitive style. But it's certainly not a matter of DESIRE to do things or CARELESSNESS.
What helps? I find:
* Writing things down, especially notes.txt
* Snapping pictures of things as easier form of notes
* Scheduled phone reminders
* Getting sufficient sleep
* Getting more than sufficient sleep - leaving an extra hour in bed to think about things, plan your day
* "Bookmark all tabs"
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#177My 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 ,…
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#178Earlier 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.
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 so…
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
This is the Way. I have one kind of gym sock and one kind of dress sock. I never need to pair socks; each type goes into a box in my dresser or closet. Similarly, I never fold gym shorts, gym shirts, or underwear. (Who cares?) Each gets stuffed in a general area of a drawer. The time savings substantially outweighs the inefficient use of space. My usual t-shirts (32° from Costco — super comfortable) are generally wri…
My wife pointed out to me early this year that I have a uniform which I didn’t actually notice until then - the same jeans (multiple pairs of the same style in black and blue), and only one style of t-shirt but in 3 colours (it’s a lie - I have 2 styles of t-shirt).
It might sound boring to some, but there’s no better feeling to me than to not even have to think when getting dressed - it’s a FILO Queue!
Re: How to avoid losing items? Holding pens
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ,…
Do you use those 10 minutes to learn a new language or something?