Stop loosing your darn keys. Stick ’em in your drawers!
Do you ever go to leave the house and can’t find your keys? Your phone? Your wallet? Do you get to the car and realize you forgot to take your medicine, or left something in the house?
Not me! (Sorry)
I just got a text from a friend that said:
I took my wallet out and was about to put it in a different place than normal at home and…. then I remembered the Craig Haynie Rule. Haha
What’s the Craig Haynie rule?
It’s fairly simple, but you’ll have to really really appreciate it for it to work.
“Put your stuff in the same place – always”.
-Me
Organizing since way back
This isn’t really a rule so much as it is a way of my life. Sometime a long long time ago I forgot something one day. I think I may have been a teenager. In fact, I think it MAY have been a cool little electronic organizer I bought from an Amway dealer in my trailer hood. (Oh yea!)
Stick it in your shoe
I wanted to take it to school to act all cool, but I forgot it on day one! That night, not wanting to forget it the next day, I put it in my shoe. It’s kinda hard to forget something when it’s in your shoe.
The next day/week probably evolved to designating a place to put my shoes with the organizer nearby. From there, who knows. Doesn’t really matter – some bum kid stole the thing from me at school a few weeks later.
My modern day shoe
Now, many years later, I have a different sort of shoe. In one of these drawers lies my car key and “wallet” (I have quite an odd way of carrying cash and cards – another story for another day). It’s hard to forget your wallet when it’s right there with your car key.
Routine / Habit
Every day – every SINGLE day, when I get home my stuff comes out of my pocket and goes into a drawer (The same drawer for almost 10 years now). When I am heading for the door, I grab my stuff. I kinda have to – I can’t go anywhere without a car key, and my wallet is holding it hostage.
But wait, there’s more!
Not only does this work for your keys and wallet:
- It works for your watch!
- It works for your shoes!
- It works for your belt!
- It works for your medicine!
I have a routine.
When I get up in the morning, I:
- Grab my phone
- [gross stuff deleted]
- Turn on the shower
- Weigh myself and record it.
- When I get back to the shower, the water is hot in exactly 3 seconds. (It takes 12 total seconds)
- When I take a shower I literally wash the exact same way. Shampoo, soap in right hand, wash down and up left arm, swap hands, down and up right arm, and [Skipping the rest of my 2000 parts], I wash my face, then soap on left finger, clean out my left ear, rinse. Soap on right finger, clean out my right ear, rinse. Final rinse in an exact order. Turn both water knobs off at exactly the same time.
- I dry off the exact same way every time.
- I get dressed the exact same way every time. I put my socks in my pocket.
- I brush my teeth, do my hair, and all that jazz – exactly the same way every time.
- I go to the bedroom, kiss Christin, kiss my daughter if she is in there.
- Get my watch off the charger and put it on.
- Stop and get wallet and key on the way to the kitchen.
- Take my Zyrtec
- Put my wedding ring on (I take it off when I get home and put it in the exact same place every day)
- Put my socks and shoes on (the exact same way every time)
- Grab my laptop bag
- Get in the car
- Drive to the office.
- There are three typical variations for food. I don’t mix them up, I stick with one for a good long time, then switch to another, and to the other. Not for variety, but for stages of the week/month/year I am in.
- If I go to IHOP (the default), I sit in the same booth. I don’t even stop and wait to be seated, I just go straight to my booth. If someone is in “my booth” I have to stop and think about where I prefer to sit.
Here is the big idea
Reducing things to a routine process eliminates unnecessary thinking/processing time. That time and mental energy can be used for more important things.
Find a process that works for you and never lose your keys again!
May the process be with you,
Craig McProcessForEverything