{"id":1535,"date":"2013-07-10T19:03:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T00:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2013-07-10T17:07:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T22:07:54","slug":"misplacing-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/misplacing-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Misplacing Things?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It happens to all of us \u2013 we forget where something is or can\u2019t find that thing we need.\u00a0 I\u2019m currently even in the middle of one of those times \u2013 one of our magazines has a place, I\u2019m sure of it \u2013 yet I cannot seem to locate where they are.\u00a0 It bugs me!\u00a0 And granted I can be a bit of a perfectionist; it\u2019s more than that though, it\u2019s unsettling to know you have something yet cannot get your hands on it.\u00a0 Although on some level losing things is inevitable, it\u2019s worthwhile to work at minimizing that.\u00a0 Therefore let\u2019s look at some of the causes of losing things as well as steps to take in order to limit how much we misplace.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We don\u2019t put things away when we\u2019re done with them.\n<ul>\n<li>Put things back into their home when you are done with them.\u00a0 How\u2019s that for an obvious solution?\u00a0 Yet, the better we can get about this, the easier our lives can be.<\/li>\n<li>This can happen for any number of reasons and sometimes it can even make sense at times.\u00a0 There are steps for dealing with things we aren\u2019t ready to put away so they won\u2019t get misplaced in the process.\u00a0 First, is there a place nearby the home that keeps the item more accessible?\u00a0 For instance you have an item you pulled out of the bathroom medicine cabinet\/drawer\/cabinet and want to leave on the counter \u2013 it might be the reminder of seeing it or making it easier to access.\u00a0 I have a counter of sorts for in process stuff \u2013 everything goes there, waiting to be used and then returned to its home.<\/li>\n<li>Also, keep things moving toward their home \u2013 I know I don\u2019t always want to run upstairs\/downstairs to just put something away \u2013 yet I have containers for items that need to go in that direction, so the next time I\u2019m moving that way, I take it along and take the few moments when I get there to put the things away.<\/li>\n<li>Does something else need to change?\u00a0 We had a chronic problem with scissors in our home \u2013 they kept disappearing.\u00a0 When we talked about it, we realized that we really wanted more around \u2013 it was too inconvenient and not easy enough \u2013 and once we got a couple of more pairs, they each go back to their homes after they\u2019ve been used.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We put like things in different places \u2013 whether that\u2019s forgetting where we\u2019d put that x thing before, or wanting those x things in multiple areas for ease of use, or changing our minds about where to keep x and not moving the earlier place into the new place.\n<ul>\n<li>Put x in only one place and do it every time.<\/li>\n<li>Early on in getting things organized, focus only on choosing a place and putting the things in that place.\u00a0 That\u2019s the most important consideration initially and later you can think about other considerations.<\/li>\n<li>Also, if you\u2019re early in the organizing process, remember to think in broad categories first \u2013 so all \u201coffice\u201d supplies get put in one place, or like I talked about recently with papers in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2013\/05\/paper-pyramid\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paper Pyramid<\/a>, all papers to be filed in one place.\u00a0 You can refine these once you\u2019re further along, though those things will likely be close together at that later point too.<\/li>\n<li>There can be times when having more than one place for x thing: cleaning supplies in each bathroom, items you want on each floor of your home, products that are currently open and being used like Ziploc bags, toilet paper, garbage bags, etc. are examples that might have two locations \u2013 those that are in use and those that you pull from when needed.\u00a0 As with almost everything, it\u2019s not completely an absolute \u2013 unless you can make it so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here I\u2019ve only covered two of the reasons we can misplace things among the many possibilities that exist.\u00a0 I\u2019ll discuss more in the coming months.\u00a0 And you will probably begin to see how much overlap there can be among the culprits that lead to our misplacing things.\u00a0 With these two examples \u2013 we might not put things away when we\u2019re done with them because that item could go in more than one place \u2013 so it\u2019s easier to simply not put it \u201caway.\u201d\u00a0 It can help to examine which is your primary struggle with misplacing things and then try different strategies to limit or even eliminate these tendencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone, no matter how organized they might be, misplaces things.  Yet no one enjoys being unable to find what he or she needs.  Here are two possible culprits contributing to our tendency for losing things and what we can do about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,5,20,7,22,4,17],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-paperwork","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-routines","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-oL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}