Store Things Where You Use Them
Like many people of my age, I have several pairs of prescription glasses. I have reading glasses for use with a book or newspaper. I have computer glasses that are bifocals with a reading component at the bottom for when I work at my desk and want to switch between my monitor and my papers. And I have what I call outdoor glasses which are progressives with my distance prescription at the top and my reading prescription at the bottom.
Not surprisingly, I sometimes find that I’m wearing the wrong glasses for the task I’m doing. I may still be wearing my computer glasses when I leave my desk and go make lunch. I may sit down to read e-mail on my computer when I still have my reading glasses on. Or I may sit down at my computer after I get home and realize I am still wearing my outdoor glasses. None of those scenarios are particularly big issues, as I quickly realize my mistake and switch to the right pair.
However, if I leave the house wearing the wrong pair of glasses, that’s a problem. And for some reason, it has happened several times in the last few weeks. In the first instance, I made it outside before I realized it and came back. The second time, I double-checked when I was about to go down the stairs to the lobby, so it was a much shorter distance to come back home. The third time, I went to the theater with my computer glasses on!
So I decided it was time for a change. Instead of keeping all three pairs of glasses on or near my desk, I decided to keep my outdoor glasses near the front door. I have a small table in the entryway where I keep my handbag and keys, and where I put anything else that needs to leave the house with me. I added a vertically-oriented glasses holder and I now have my outdoor glasses right by the door. This dovetails with one of my basic organizing principles: Store things where you use them.
Moving my glasses to the entryway necessitated another change. I always clean my outdoor glasses before I put them on, and I was using a cleaning cloth that lived in a drawer near my desk. Now that the glasses were near the door, I moved the cloth to the drawer in the entryway table.
It has been going well so far, although I still do check as I’m going out the door to make sure that I remembered to put on the right glasses!
My outdoor glasses on the entryway table with my handbag and keys.