10 minutes a day is spent looking for MISSING keys……
5 minutes a day is spent looking for your lost phone…..
7 minutes a day looking for misplaced socks and shoes……
4 minutes a day spent looking for your favorite sunglasses…..
On average we spend 30+ minutes a day looking for misplaced items! (According to research conducted by The Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Up for discussion today is the perennial question on how to stop losing your keys…….and all the other items you misplace daily.
How? – By developing the habit of using one simple system.
Why Should A Man Worry About Spending Time Looking For His Keys
Seriously?
Why does it matter if you spend a few minutes every day looking for misplaced items?
10 minutes x 365 days is approximately 60 hours a year – which is how much time the average person spends looking for their missing keys. (Which is just over a week in total)
I'm one of those people that are always looking for something so I assumed looking for my keys was simply a part of my life.
The change came for me when we were moving things in the office recently and I misplaced my keys and it completely ruined my afternoon.
I spent 30 minutes searching, which not only threw my whole day out, it also made me late to picking my wife and kids up from the park resulting in them having to walk home.
That's the number one reason this tip is going to be important.
1. Losing Items Causes Unnecessary Stress
Daily stress takes away from our quality of life.
Misplacing items shouldn't affect us but you could be losing years of your life to stress not to mention the time spent searching.
2. Losing Items Costs Time
Every second spent looking for misplaced possessions is a bit of time you can never recover.
So now that we know the reasons to stop losing items how do we actually stop?
The Solution: Use Catchalls & Key Valets
Remember – everything should have a place.
Keys have a home.
Your phone has a home.
You wallet has a place you always put it.
To do this leverage catchall or a valet where you put items you commonly lose.
It could be as simple as a bowl or a place where your keys, your phone and your bill fold go every time you walk into the office or your home.
A Solution For The Office
Since “the incident” I now have a little catchall in my office where I can drop my keys or my phone into and I usually leave my wallet in my pocket.
A Solution For Your Home
A little valet on top of my night stand now holds all my important effects.
Having a key hook at the entrance of your house so can hang your keys up is a good idea. By doing this your keys are all in a central place.
Hang your backup keys on the key hook right behind the main set. The benefit to this system is that even when your keys are missing and you're in a hurry you have direct access to another set.
Really handy if you're late for an appointment!
Putting Everything In Its Place
This can also be applied to your garage and tools or your office setup.
Designate a place for items you misplace often, it works effectively in your garage as well as large manufacturing companies.
A common setup is is a hanging board with outlines for each tool. This way everyone knows where your tools need to go – not just you.
Organize it in a recognizable structure (screws on one shelf, painting implements on another etc.) so that even if you don't use an item often you will have a general idea of where it is or where to tell someone to find it.
This may seem overly organized to some but by knowing where items go and having that system in place will save you time and frustration and help you be more effective and productive.
Implement this system and stop misplacing your keys, phone, bill fold etc. Decide where to put your commonly lost items so you can always find them.
Now I have to figure out how to make sure my wife charges her phone all the time, but that's a topic for another article.
Here are some products I recommend:
10 Inch Black Leatherette Valet Tray
Wall Mount Storage and Key Rack
12 Inch Valet Tray – 6 Compartment Leatherette
Interested in productivity and time management?
Have a look at some of our other related articles:
Click here to read 4 Tips On Dealing With Being Overwhelmed
Click here to read 9 Tips On How To Stop Procrastinating Tips On How To Stop Procrastinating
Click here to watch How To Eliminate Time Wasted Looking For Lost Keys, Wallets, and Phones
Click here to watch How You Can Stop Losing Your Keys & Wallet on Youtube
