Comment by treetalker
2 years ago
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 drop the kitchen items off when I arrive. I get my coffee; grab anything queued up on the kitchen take-off point that can be dropped off on the way, and drop them off on my way back.
As it works out, everything is almost always where it ought to be; and when it’s not, I know where it will be instead.
The key is that I always check the take-off point every time I leave a room.
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 <now> by putting stuff in its place to save yourself much more searching effort <later>, is either lost on them, or they just greatly value the present over the future.
I do not even get annoyed about it anymore - just like I do not get annoyed that it turns dark at night. My stuff is always in its place, and before we leave the house they will spend 10 minutes finding theirs.
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.
It is easy to say to do this, but in reality what happens is I am deep in my thoughts and all of it happens on autopilot. I consciously understand it would save me time to put them correctly away, but there is just nothing triggering me to do it. If I had a very intelligent watch that dinged me every time I'm supposed to do it, I would do it. The tech is not there yet though.
I think it's the multiple processes going on in the brain, where there's a process that will scan for danger, and this same track is able to break out of the deep thought process. I have to assume this same process just doesn't see those points as something that should interrupt the deep thought process.
The same process with any novel activity will be much more sensitive, but as I do more of the same activity it will consider it a safe activity. The more I do something, the more I would be on autopilot allowing the deep thought process to go on.
For example when I am in a new place, after moving or whatever reason, it is easier in the beginning for me to stay organized because the process is still sensitive and is more careful, but the more I get complacent the less I will be thinking about where to put the things and the deep thought track will be fully prioritised.
It is a skill that you can develop to maintain a basic awareness of what you are doing that you can break yourself out of autopilot to do the small things that you need to do.
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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.
This reminds me of a rule I have for naming things in code (functions, variables, etc).
Say you add a function, and then the first time you call that function, you call it by a different name. Don't fix the function call to match the original name, but instead go back and change the name to match how you tried to call it. The state of mind you are in when you called the function is a better guide to naming than the state of mind you were in when you implemented it.
Clever!
My wife and I are very similar to you and your wife. I will note that on the rare occasion when I misplace something, I've found that it's efficient to just enlist her help finding it immediately. She is much better practiced than I am at finding things where they don't belong.
The "ding" sound from "Find my iPhone" is pretty commonly heard in my house... but not from my phone.
The problem I find is that, other than my iPhone, the reason I often can't find an iDevice is that I haven't used it recently and have no idea where I left it. Unless it was attached to a charging cable it probably isn't in a position to ding or otherwise be found.
This is just good marriage (and general relationship) advice.
Just curious: The "33rd" in your username is the parallel, a given 33rd street somewhere, none of the above ...
> 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 <now> by putting stuff in its place to save yourself much more searching effort <later>, is either lost on them, or they just greatly value the present over the future.
That doesn't give enough credit to the original idea. I know it's an exaggeration, but 20 holding pens will totally defeat the purpose. The idea is to have one place in every room where you can put anything. This saves the mental effort of trying to recall what is the place for thing-at-point. There is a place, for all of them, don't think about it. Just dwim it into the holding pen.
This is not an effort or desire-mediated performance, it is a focus-mediated performance. Some people find that cognitively more difficult than others.
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"
> Snapping pictures of things as easier form of notes
How do you get a hold of the picture later?
I've tried doing this, but I have a hard time finding the pictures if I haven't quickly moved the information to textual form.
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Do you use those 10 minutes to learn a new language or something?
Usually I spend those 10 minutes helping them search for their stuff :-) My main interest is the lack of stress because I know where my stuff is.
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 could be integrated into the car keyfob to whittle down the size even more.
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I might just steal this idea from you. Having a partner who ”organize through chaos” (which I maintain is not an actual system) there are constantly treasure troves of knick-knacks everywhere, usually hiding important items. No matter how often I try to organize it’s always messy, I think this might be the answer. Thank you!
Long time lurker, first time posting because I love this concept and this is is how I (ADHD type) get stuff done without getting distracted.
I've always thought it was the same as the bubble sort algorithm we were taught in uni.
Take something one step towards where it belongs, and pick up anything going in the same direction you are.
Repeat that a few times and everything gets where it belongs. Not the most optimal algorithm (it's a bubble sort after all) but it helps.
Two phases:
Pick things up (until both hands, arms, elbows, armpits, etc are fully saturated).
Put things away. DO NOT PICK UP ANYTHING AT ALL UNTIL BOTH HANDS ARE EMPTIED.
1) take out the trash
2) put clean stuff away (from your "sorting station")
3) pick things up
4) put things away
5) circulate (start from a bathroom or kitchen and spiral "outwards"), and begin the "pick things up" phase again.
Take out the trash removes "constipation" (the ability to "evacuate" or "clear" unwanted or unneeded items)
Put clean things away reaps the rewards of your prior investment in cleaning, and clears out your "sorting station" ... the necessary, temporary workplace for sorting or prepping clean items.
Picking things up (until saturation) makes it a game of ordering, organizing the held items where you're effectively pre-planning your drop-off route in order to remove the items from your hands.
Putting things away UNTIL EMPTY stops the ADD distraction of "doing something else useful" because you "MUST" complete the "pick things up phase" by "putting them all away".
Spiraling outwards from a bathroom generally means that a bathroom has an unambiguous "cleaned" state (trash, toilet, sink, mirror, floor, drawers, etc).
Bathrooms/kitchens generally connect to bedrooms or living spaces, and repeating the steps above (trash, clean, pick, put) in the bedroom or living area is effectively "guaranteed to terminate".
Saturate your arms, put everything away, repeat.
Best of luck!
A place for everything and everything in its place...
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.
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We have "piles" everywhere. Woe to you if you move or rearrange a pile...
These "take off" points remind me of a great parody
Whoa, it's halfway there
Whoa,leave it on the stairs!
https://youtu.be/ZKW-USW5uTo
One take-off point I've used is putting things in/on top of my shoes.
That way I can't leave the house without dealing with them
A related pro-tip I learned from catering, which I now use often for leftovers, potlucks, gifts, etc. If you have things in the fridge you need to take with you when you leave your current location, put your keys in the fridge with them!
Also related: if you place anything on top of your car - coffee, wallet, briefcase - putting your keys with it makes it hard to forget & drive off.
Good idea. I know that problem myself, too, though unfortunately this solution only works with a set of vehicle keys, doesn't it?
So unfortunately not much use if you're commuting on public transport…
Or blocking the door!
I will almost always ignore the box/take-off. I pile stuff up by my office door that needs to go out to the garage. That spot always has tools piled up. A tote probably would help.
Also, there's design trick to make things look better. If you put 3 or 4 things onto a dish or textile or something, they magically convert from clutter to intentional. I don't know if a plastic sterlite works for this though.
I do the same. I use the stairs as take-off points. I regularly go up and down anyway, so I take whatever is on the stairs and put it away, or put it on the next floor stairs if it needs to go to the attic. Now if I could only get my wife to do this too. She will put items on the stairs but always forget to take them up or down and walk right past them :-D
my take-off point for outside my house is on top of the car keys.
It’s interesting because it contradicts the advice to only move an item once (avoiding clutter)
> contradicts the advice to only move an item once
This would have to be wrong.
This would ban laundry hampers, dirty clothes would go straight into the machine.
I think the rule would be if you pick up the item from the “take-off” point it goes away.
You have to be able queue things before the clean. OP isn't cleaning, they are constructing the queue. You would be allow to move from queue to queue I guess, but you'd have to make sure there can't be a topographical loop.
Ha! This is how I manage files between my desktop and home directory’s subfolders. Don’t have time to sort? Drop into the parent directory, and sort it later.
Thanks for sharing, I'm definitely going to be giving this a try!
I do this. The take-off points are generally where I will trip over the items. It infuriates my wife.
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