Never, ever, let any other member of your family/living-group tidy your stuff up. That way a) you can remember where you put stuff and be right, and b) If you’re wrong, you can only blame yourself, thus reducing group discord. :)
Unfortunately, if you live with people who don’t think that the natural way to organise stuff is ‘piled wherever I put it down’ then this method can itself cause discord—you just can’t win :(
My usual approach for finding something that wasn’t where I looked for it is to trace back my path to the last place I clearly remember it being (for stuff you lost track of recently, which is most of the stuff I need to look for). The item is nearly always found somewhere in arm’s reach of that path. I can’t understand why the suggestion to use this method is not considered helpful by those I live with.
I don’t think that you can organise everything so that it is always where you first look for it, short of an eidetic memory, but so long as nearly everything is where you remember putting it and most things that are not are found quickly, you’re most of the way there.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the technology to be able to google your stuff becomes available within the next decade or so, perhaps via databases created by object recognition, maybe of a life-log, or something? That’d be a good way to avoid doing a load of work forcing all your stuff into some systematic order.
Never, ever, let any other member of your family/living-group tidy your stuff up.
The joy of the single life!
Living alone, then, it is no wonder you rejoice that things remain precisely where you left them. You feel a great warmth inside on the day you realize that if you haven’t finished the marmalade, there is still some marmalade left.
Get a weird, vaguely table like piece of furniture, declare it some long name containing “storage” and “organization” with great formality, and remove all other convenient places to put stuff.
Never, ever, let any other member of your family/living-group tidy your stuff up. That way a) you can remember where you put stuff and be right, and b) If you’re wrong, you can only blame yourself, thus reducing group discord. :)
Unfortunately, if you live with people who don’t think that the natural way to organise stuff is ‘piled wherever I put it down’ then this method can itself cause discord—you just can’t win :(
My usual approach for finding something that wasn’t where I looked for it is to trace back my path to the last place I clearly remember it being (for stuff you lost track of recently, which is most of the stuff I need to look for). The item is nearly always found somewhere in arm’s reach of that path. I can’t understand why the suggestion to use this method is not considered helpful by those I live with.
I don’t think that you can organise everything so that it is always where you first look for it, short of an eidetic memory, but so long as nearly everything is where you remember putting it and most things that are not are found quickly, you’re most of the way there.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the technology to be able to google your stuff becomes available within the next decade or so, perhaps via databases created by object recognition, maybe of a life-log, or something? That’d be a good way to avoid doing a load of work forcing all your stuff into some systematic order.
The joy of the single life!
Lynne Truss, “Making the Cat Laugh”
Get a weird, vaguely table like piece of furniture, declare it some long name containing “storage” and “organization” with great formality, and remove all other convenient places to put stuff.