Thirty things that help #6: Have what you need and know where it is

This post is part of Thirty Things That Help.

Have what you need and know where it is

This is so simple. But do you know how many weeks I have gone through with barely enough usable pencils in the house? Every time someone wants to write something we pick up multiple pencils with broken leads, and then we have a frustrated hunt around the house for one that works, and finally, hopefully, we find it. By which time the chances are high that we’ve forgotten what we wanted to write in the first place.

This is not an incitement to buy everything in your ‘saved for later’ basket. I’m just saying have the basics and have them to hand. Keep your pencils in a pencil case, with the erasers and sharpener. Keep your scissors and glue in a craft box. Have one place where you keep all the text books and exercise books and then there’s a good chance that when you need one of them, it’ll be where it should be. (Obviously it’s not foolproof. We’re human. Forgive yourself and try again.)

Having what you need goes hand in hand with getting rid of what you don’t. Why do I still have all the broken pencils? Do I secretly enjoy picking up six broken ones before I find the one that writes? You don’t have to do a giant declutter, you can just throw away the things that are broken when you stumble upon them.

I don’t think this will change your life, but it will save you a few minutes of maddening frustration on a regular basis.

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The image for this post is by Behnam Norouzi via Unsplash.