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Important pieces of paper are the worst! I took a paper plate and cut it in half. I put a whole paper plate on the table as if I was going to eat from it. I turned the half plate over and stapled it to the whole plate which made a receptacle. I hung it next to the calendar on the wall. If it's important, stick it in there and you know it will be there.
It's not just the way you are. You just haven't found the right system yet.
P.S. If it's a form you need to sign for your kids, sign it and put it right in the backpack.
(Bit of a rant, not directed at person quoted so much as the concepts expressed):
Some of this is rather amusing. Wasn't aware there was "paper" -anything floating around anymore, in volume, heaven forbid business-critical information other than the oddball item. @ my house:
- Business receipts: go into a folder called "Tax Year 20xx", on my office desk
- Garbage from brokerage houses and WA State, which go into the "to be scanned" folder (ditto). I clear that out quarterly or so, not time-critical. Shredder is under my left foot, scanner on left side of desk as I type.
- Bills are all unpaid, but for one which is due on the 15th so monthly that I do manually. Google calendar reminder for that day before and again day-of, can't miss it, online payment as are all the rest.
I have a book of 9 remaining USPS First Class "Forever" stamps here in a desk cubby. I figure that will last through 2018. Can't remember last time I mailed a USPS letter.
Someone enlighten me why schools are still using paper. That all should have *gradually* gone the way of the Dodo Bird in 2010 with the first gen iPads, or the next year when Google Android tablets came out, or following when Microsoft Surface devices arrived. But now: five, six years ago? What are we dealing with, government unions? (oh right: they sorta-kinda are).
(chuckle): let me guess, such devices are "racist" or "income inequality" or other gibberish. They're tax write-downs for people who itemize, in any event, assuming private purchase and after (3 year depreciation) I sell mine for $.25 on the dollar on Amazon. I cannot imagine dealing with paper BS from a school, kids being less than useless for follow-up/follow-through pretty much by definition.
All communications parent-teacher, grading, other important items are at least email and/or online systems, right? Please tell me that much, that one-sixth into the 21st Century we're not working with 19th Century tools still.
I must be out of it. Had I any hypothetical kids they'd be in private school, then Howe Military Academy or Andover or Exeter anyway.
That's easy--any form of paperwork whatsoever. I am NOT a paper person, I am the HUGEST advocate of the "paperless office" you will ever come across. Things like my kids' social security numbers, shopping list, doctor's appointments, recipes, they're ALL done electronically via "ColorNote" in my phone and with that I never lose them. Give me a paper anything, and it's gone before I sneeze. Always.
I used to have problems with my keys and my wallet, but I have a specific spot for them and I hardly ever have issues with such anymore. In the kitchen, I periodically have problems finding the can opener or measuring cups or the wire whip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Retriever
I have to say that I am mystified by people who drop their possessions in random places, even in their own homes. When I arrive home, my keys immediately go on a dedicated hook below the kitchen bulletin board. My wallet, watch, cellphone, and loose change go into a leather desktop caddy.
Why in the world would I continue to put things in random places if I actually wanted to be able to locate them when I next need them? I can understand doing the random places routine a few times, but after a few anxious, "I can't find my xxxxxx", episodes, wouldn't it just be logical to find a specific place for everything, and then to adhere to that placement?
The problem is there are too many objects, you can't possibly have a place for EVERYTHING. Crucial items, yes, such as how my keys hang on a nail by the door and how my wallet goes in a specific spot on a specific desk, and keeping tools in the toolbox, but the average person owns, what, 7,000 or 11,000 individual items or so? There is NO WAY you can organize every single one.
Besides that, dare I say it, having to expend THAT much effort to keep up with items, it's too much work. You can call me "lazy" all you want to, but yes, it's too much work. There a lot going on in one's life, there are only so many hours in the day--in the words of George Costanza grumbling when the banker said they no longer roll change but he could do so with the coin paper thingies, "what, do you want me to quit my job?"
At times it does seem like keeping up with items to where you're not losing things would entail just about that level of concentration and effort, it's almost to the degree that you indeed do have to flat-out quit your job and devote every single minute of your life keeping track of where your objects are located. No, thank you--and regardless, I STILL expect items to never become lost ANYWAY. It should be automatic, like breathing--you need it, it's just there.
Besides that, dare I say it, having to expend THAT much effort to keep up with items, it's too much work. You can call me "lazy" all you want to, but yes, it's too much work. There a lot going on in one's life, there are only so many hours in the day--in the words of George Costanza grumbling when the banker said they no longer roll change but he could do so with the coin paper thingies, "what, do you want me to quit my job?"
At times it does seem like keeping up with items to where you're not losing things would entail just about that level of concentration and effort, it's almost to the degree that you indeed do have to flat-out quit your job and devote every single minute of your life keeping track of where your objects are located. No, thank you--and regardless, I STILL expect items to never become lost ANYWAY. It should be automatic, like breathing--you need it, it's just there.
No, you're not "lazy", that's name calling and fussy.
However, while no one can memorize the rotating location of 7-11K items (if that's a typical number), clearly one *can* build a simple mental taxonomy about the building(s) in which one lives or works. It's not work, it's using analogy, breadcrumbs, and grouping objects similarly.
I think of it much as animal and plant kingdom are organized: Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species. Now let's break it down mentally like so:
Building
Area
Room
Container
Object holder
So....thinking about my camera supplies, of which I have maybe fifty including accessories.
Building: main house
Area: bedrooms Room: guest bedroom
Container: main closet
Object holder: left shelves
So that's where I look, and sort through fifty items 'cause that's where they always are, and...
...find my Fujifilm X100T, spare battery, and charger. When done, back it goes to the camera "Object Holder" and "Container".
I "memorized" a few basics, like the room level bolded above, not 7,000 specific atomic-level bits of information (a computer would call those "memory space allocations") for each and every item. Computers have to think like that, sorting everything and all possible combinations. Humans can use shortcuts, which is why intelligence is so interesting and elusive to scientists. As I just did. I cut down the work via shortcuts. "All camera items are in main house, bedrooms area, guest bedroom, main closet, left shelves." In the kitchen example, I have spices, measuring cups, and various others grouped by drawer. That's as atomic as my kitchen needs to be, at what I call the "Container" level.
Not perfect, and not everything falls out so simply. I made the above up, but that's just one way to "systematize" where objects of a certain type are kept.
I am a disaster and I married a bigger disaster. I think we're both missing extremely large parts of our brains. He loses keys, wallet, important paperwork, misplaces jackets around the house. I lose keys, money, once I lost a $2,000 cheque walking from the bedroom to the kitchen, in a house that wasn't exactly huge. I never found it. Had to get it replaced.
When I was a child, I lost coats, umbrellas.. mittens. My mum put my mittens on a big piece of string and it went through both coat sleeves. I lost the string. I lost my passport 5 mins before dad was driving me to the airport, once.
I loose footwear.. slippers, flip flops, running shoes. We've spent huge portions of our days looking for stuff we lost.. we've also spent huge portions of our days making notes and developing systems for remembering,, gone through electric collar treatment to force ourselves to hang the keys on the key rack inside the door..
It's pretty funny, sometimes. But at the time it is demoralizing and I'm not sure there is a cure. I cross the border about 3 times a month, and always have my passport and nexus card in my hand as i leave the house. Occasionally I have misplaced it IN the car. And then you know what happens. Anxiety, as you search for it, causes it not to be found, even though you KNOW it's in the car with you. Where? Will you find it in time? That is the worst stress. We pulled over once to look for hubby's ID right in the plaza. Within seconds we were surrounded by border guards who approached the car as if it were full of terrorists. lol.
My mother could write a book on lost keys. Her best story - she came back from shopping at around 2 and realized she forgot her keys. Luckily a neighbor was home so she got him over, to bring a ladder so she could climb through the bathroom window which was open. Dad would not be home till 5:30. They got the ladder but it wasn't tall enough. Neighbour went around to the back to check more windows. No luck. Neighbour went back to his house to get tool box, they knew that at this point the lock would have to be removed. When they finally got the door open and burst into the house, there was my dad, standing there saying "What's all the racket about??" He had been home since noon and was just quietly reading the paper, completely oblivious to what was going on outside.
One cold winter just after Christmas, hubby came home from the cottage and left his ex wife there with the kids. But when he got back home, he found he had not just taken HIS keys, but HER keys as well. So the keys had a lonely ride back up to the cottage on a greyhound bus the next day! I think they charged him $40 or something.
The problem is there are too many objects, you can't possibly have a place for EVERYTHING. Crucial items, yes, such as how my keys hang on a nail by the door and how my wallet goes in a specific spot on a specific desk, and keeping tools in the toolbox, but the average person owns, what, 7,000 or 11,000 individual items or so? There is NO WAY you can organize every single one.
Unless somebody is a true minimalist or a modern-day Luddite, it would indeed be impossible to organize every object that one owns, but--then again--I only spoke about the objects that most people would typically need on an everyday basis, such as...keys...wallet...loose change...cellphone.
Beyond those items, all that I can do is to try to use reasonably logical places for objects that are not used on an everyday basis. Does that mean that I always find things in the first place that I look? Obviously not, but without the luxury of having a personal assistant to follow me around and to organize everything for me, that is the best that I can do.
Incidentally, one of my favorite "I can't find it" complaints is in regard to people who can never seem to find their eyeglasses. Ummmm...If you can't define a standard place to leave your eyeglasses when you are not wearing them, then hanging them from a chain around your neck would seem to be logical. Or, is that just too logical?
If somebody insists on continually depositing everyday objects in random places, rather than simply defining a standard place for each item, I guess that the only thing to do is to walk around in confused circles, chanting, "I can't find my (fill in the blank for the missing object of the moment)".
The problem is there are too many objects, you can't possibly have a place for EVERYTHING. Crucial items, yes, such as how my keys hang on a nail by the door and how my wallet goes in a specific spot on a specific desk, and keeping tools in the toolbox, but the average person owns, what, 7,000 or 11,000 individual items or so? There is NO WAY you can organize every single one.
Besides that, dare I say it, having to expend THAT much effort to keep up with items, it's too much work. You can call me "lazy" all you want to, but yes, it's too much work. There a lot going on in one's life, there are only so many hours in the day--in the words of George Costanza grumbling when the banker said they no longer roll change but he could do so with the coin paper thingies, "what, do you want me to quit my job?"
At times it does seem like keeping up with items to where you're not losing things would entail just about that level of concentration and effort, it's almost to the degree that you indeed do have to flat-out quit your job and devote every single minute of your life keeping track of where your objects are located. No, thank you--and regardless, I STILL expect items to never become lost ANYWAY. It should be automatic, like breathing--you need it, it's just there.
That's the whole point of everything having a place- "you need it, it's just there". It's no actual effort whatsoever. I take off my jacket, I hang it up. I slide my purse off my shoulder, it goes on the chair that it lives on. I take off my jewelry, it goes into the jewelry box. I know where everything is, so it's actually *less* effort because I never have to look for anything or keep track of anything.
I work at a public library: Our lost and found contains: water bottles, charging cords, papers left in the copier, homework/notebooks, and outerwear like hats/jackets/umbrellas. We are also right next to a grocery store so sometimes we find a bag of groceries. In the kids room: sippy cups, pacifiers, small toys (Please do not let your toddler get into the habit of taking a beloved toy into a public place! It should stay safely in the carseat)
That's the whole point of everything having a place- "you need it, it's just there". It's no actual effort whatsoever. I take off my jacket, I hang it up. I slide my purse off my shoulder, it goes on the chair that it lives on. I take off my jewelry, it goes into the jewelry box. I know where everything is, so it's actually *less* effort because I never have to look for anything or keep track of anything.
It doesn't work that way for many of us. I've done cashiering and I can't tell you how many times people leave behind items they paid for. It happens because exerting the necessary mental energy to do the other things AND keep up with the purchased items is just more than many people can do, or frankly should HAVE to do.
That's the thing, the stories are legion in here of people who TRY but lose items anyway That just shouldn't happen, ever, period. Especially if you've tried to that minimal degree, supernatural forces (God) need to get off THEIR lazy "donkey" and see to it that via supernatural magic items are just there WITHOUT a person having to be so deliberate about where they put their items or pay so much attention that they can't do anything else. Anything that requires so much effort should result in something tremendous like figuring out that E=MC2.
I left a charger a hotel room a long time ago when I got my first one. I made a plan and have stuck to it. I charge the phone overnight. In the morning I take the phone off and put the charger immediately in my suitcase. Problem solved. My older sister was such a scatterbrain! It was embarrassing as a kid, and I decided at about 10 to be different.
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