181–190 of 282 posts
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…
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 h…
The stuff you have there is all pretty small and not terribly expensive, so I don't think it's very hoard-ey.
I did have to get rid of a lot of my computer equipment that I was hoarding...rack mount servers are sort of addictive because they're inexpensive and powerful, so I had a bunch of them taking up way too much room in my basement. I've given all of them away to friends and coworkers and replaced them with a few tiny gaming PCs.
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I lose my shit all the time (everything that doesn’t have a fixed location anyway), which is why everything that regularly comes with me is now in it’s own specialized bags. There’s a work bag, a ‘going out with kids’ bag, etc. I still remember the last time I lost my keys, which is like 26 years ago, when I was 10. But I still identify as that kid that always lost their keys xD
A few thoughts on keys: I am consciously trying to whittle down my keychain to reduce the chance of temporary losing access to things. I have a keypad door lock so I’be been able to get rid of my front door key. However, I found that decreasing the use of something can increase the chance of losing it, because you’re not “touching” it all the time and not aware of its location. I have an Airtag, but wish that it coul…
(I wouldn't recommend embedding an Airtag though, ha)
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…
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
When I lived with a mate we each had a drawer in the kitchen. This place had weirdly deep drawers, two of, stacked. Perfect for this. If I saw his junk lying around, it went in his drawer. Far more often if he saw my junk lying around, it went in my drawer. ‘Where’s thing? ’ Probably in my drawer.
He'd get annoyed with me because I moved his keys from the microwave and put in next to the rest of the keys. Apparently that was his spot for his keys.
The way I 'fixed' this is I got a little basket for his keys and now he gets after me because I leave my keys on my desk.
One other thing that would cause turmoil was mail. We would get mail in then dump it on the counter. I would sort it into piles but apparently the pile was an efficient storage method. Now we have inboxes right next to the door, even our dog has one for all of her stuff because before we'd place her leash wherever she wandered off to when she walked inside.
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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.
I do this for pens. I bought 25 4-color Bics, stuck them in a glass at the center of the house. Very useful
The whole household uses them
I have such a hard time relating to this in the same way I get deeply annoyed by sloppy code from coworkers. Any advice?
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…
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My coat is the only place for my keys so I can’t leave without them.
I tried this trick too, but What if it’s sunny/too hot for a coat?