Tylee

Registered
Hello fellow GTDoers,


The PROBLEM
I start started to clarify and organize my stuff but I came across an item that I want to use/look at later but not now, a sketchbook. This then made me realize at least a 50 or so of items I have that does not belong or will not fit into my designated reference folders and/or cabinets that I have currently set up.


The WORRY
I don’t really know what to do to be able to retrieve such items. I feel like writing down where things are on a piece of paper and placing it in one of the general reference folders will get it lost even if I organize them into a category within an alphabet such as:


Gen.Ref_A_Art_Sketching_Sketchbook_Placed [insert location of the Sketchbook].


I would have to do this with hundreds of items (hopefully no more than 100 items), which I don't have a problem with, but what I am worrying about is retrieving my sketchbook or whatever bigger and/or non-paper items when I want to


The POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I have been contemplating on making a ''where things are'' reference list with its own alpha system, with each alphabet having at least 1 page of its own. Of course I will have these items grouped together and store them at certain places for each category as well for easier tracking. But sometimes the lines can be blurry with certain items:


Where Things Are Folder_A_Art_Sketchbook_Placed [insert location of the Sketchbook].


I’m also not sure if this system I thought of will work since I am new to the GTD method. I have been wondering if it’s just a lack of experience with GTD that worries me about finding these items whenever I want to without having a designated “where thing are” reference list and just sticking to a single general reference system


Examples of items that I will sometimes use/look at:
Souvenirs, calligraphy supplies, fountain pen supplies, extra electrical cords, extra charger, board games, décor not in use yet, BB balls, candles and holders, and especially items that are not easily categorized and are in-between, occasionally or rarely used, etc

Note: All items I am Pondering about are ones I have decided to keep.

If you have any good working system in place PLEASE SHARE!!!
 
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TesTeq

Registered
I don't need a catalog of everything in my home. For example I know where forks, knives and plates are - in the kitchen. And I have a dedicated drawer for board games, a dedicated cabinet for DVDs and a box where I put cables (some labelled, some obvious-purpose (USB, LAN), and some nobody-knows-what-it-is).
 

Oogiem

Registered
If I have something like that I just create either a project or a next action to say "read and reflect on the sketchbook I created July 2016" and the note for that says "Sketchbook is upstairs in the bookcase next to the clothes drying rack, 3rd shelf down middle of the shelf and has a brown cover" I use Omnifocus so I have some note space that I can attach to either actions or projects. We have bookcases in every room in the house and thousands of books so I often need to specify locations in great detail. <G>

I once tried to set up a separate filing system for locations a but it became cumbersome to manage and didn't help me find things more easily so I just put the details of where the item is in the project support for whatever project or action it pertains to. The one exception is the lsit of where things are in case of emergency. That is a list that is readily accessible to the people who might have to deal with stuff if I and my husband were injured or dead. It tells things like how to access password protected files, where things are stored and how to get access to my Omnifocus system that has all the banking and farm tasks in it.

For the supplies things like calligraphy supplies, or board games. I set up specific locations where all those items live. So I have a designated drawer for inks and pens. I have a separate rolling cart with lots of drawers where all my scrapbook cutters and adhesives and the current scrapbook project live. I have a desk caddy thingy for my scrapbook pens and a series of paper holders for scrapbook paper. For knitting projects that are in someday/maybe but for which I have already decided on patterns or have the yarn picked out. I have some small plastic totes that I put the project materials in. One tote holds a single project. I put an index card with the project title in the tote positioned so I can see it when they are stacked on a shelf. When I review my someday/maybe list of potential projects I often do it while looking at the totes for projects that are started in the sense that I have some of the prep work done and pick one that calls to me.

Decor items are stored in labeled bankers boxes, Christmas Decorations, Halloween Decorations etc. I don't do much more than that but I know folks who have decorations for every major holiday and season. In general I try to store things where they will be used first and then like with like. So I won't put all the extension cords into one place but instead have one hanging next to the sheep shearing machine and one with the shop vac in the shop. Any spare extension cords that are not dedicated to a particular piece of equipment are stored together.
 

treelike

Registered
I basically try to predict where I might look for an item in the future before deciding where to put it away. But, yes, there are many occasions where the item is too miscellaneous to decide where to put it and so infrequently needed that I will forget where I did end up putting it.

For the small items like this I use the little clear plastic drawers that come in units that can be fixed to the wall. The drawers can be labelled and arranged alphabetically. This works great for paperclips, fuses, coin cells, curtain hooks, spare car bulbs, etc. I use these drawers extensively for components for my electronics hobby, but keep all that separate from the miscellaneous stuff.

For slightly bigger stuff like this I have been experimenting with using the boxes my cat's food pouches come in, which I would normally throw away. These are about 3 X 6 inches and I am sticking them to my garage wall in rows and columns much like the little plastic drawers. It's not too pretty but my wife never goes in there so it's OK.

The even bigger miscellaneous stuff can be a problem but at least it's easier to find because it's, well, bigger.
EDIT:
I forgot to add that I also have a shelf for items required for GTD projects that I am half way through i.e. physical project support materials. I also sometimes put items on there strongly related to SDMB tasks. The stuff on that shelf is often there because I still need to find the other stuff required to complete the project.....
 
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Gardener

Registered
I may be misunderstanding, but to me this doesn't feel like a GTD system issue so much as a potential project dealing with home storage.

But first I guess I'm wondering if it's a solution looking for a problem. Do you often lose these things? Do you only lose certain categories of things? Maybe this is a category-by-category problem?
 

Tylee

Registered
I don't need a catalog of everything in my home. For example I know where forks, knives and plates are - in the kitchen. And I have a dedicated drawer for board games, a dedicated cabinet for DVDs and a box where I put cables (some labelled, some obvious-purpose (USB, LAN), and some nobody-knows-what-it-is).
Thank you very much for responding,

I see what you have done and i am in the process of doing the same by having designated places for categories of items. I am especially interested in you dealings with "nobody-knows-what-it-is" items. I'm guessing that you have a dedicated location for those. Should you decide to find one of those items how would you reference right away that they are there and not be wasting time for searching for them?

I am just trying to prepare for just-in-case scenarios, as I find it very frustrating have no idea on and search for these types of items
 

Gardener

Registered
Random fact: We keep the tape measure in the freezer.

We use it moderately often (maybe twice a week), we always used to misplace it rather than properly putting it away in the toolbox, so for some reason we came up with the idea of the freezer. We also enjoy exclaiming, "Put the tape measure away before it spoils!"

But you can really only use that trick for one thing.
 

Tylee

Registered
I may be misunderstanding, but to me this doesn't feel like a GTD system issue so much as a potential project dealing with home storage.

But first I guess I'm wondering if it's a solution looking for a problem. Do you often lose these things? Do you only lose certain categories of things? Maybe this is a category-by-category problem?
Yes, you may be correct,
I am trying to find the best way to store and find a bunch of miscellaneous/one-of-a-kind items that can't be put in its own living area by category as there is too little of the kind to occupy, lets say, a whole drawer/shelf, OR items there are difficult to categorize. And I don't have too much space so I would have to place 2-3 categories of items in one drawer/shelf but the real issue in the miscellaneous items.

I do lose where things are every now and then and this has to stop, because it 'grabs more attention than it deserves' so to speak. It's not really category specific, but it most often occurs with things I don't use frequently.
 

Tylee

Registered
Random fact: We keep the tape measure in the freezer.

We use it moderately often (maybe twice a week), we always used to misplace it rather than properly putting it away in the toolbox, so for some reason we came up with the idea of the freezer. We also enjoy exclaiming, "Put the tape measure away before it spoils!"

But you can really only use that trick for one thing.
hahaha, I will consider that one, it is actually one of the items that I lose at times!
 

Gardener

Registered
Yes, you may be correct,
I am trying to find the best way to store and find a bunch of miscellaneous/one-of-a-kind items that can't be put in its own living area by category as there is too little of the kind to occupy, lets say, a whole drawer/shelf, OR items there are difficult to categorize. And I don't have too much space so I would have to place 2-3 categories of items in one drawer/shelf but the real issue in the miscellaneous items.

I do lose where things are every now and then and this has to stop, because it 'grabs more attention than it deserves' so to speak. It's not really category specific, but it most often occurs with things I don't use frequently.

More random thoughts:

- We have the "hammer rule". We used to have a friend who just kept buying hammers until he had so many that when he went looking for one, one would probably turn up. We use that for a few things, like hairbrushes and phone charging cables.

- I store some categories of things in little Japanese food boxes. (I just picked one up and it says "Takenaka" on it.) They're small enough (there are at least two sizes) that I'm not wasting a whole drawer on the category, but big enough that I'm not likely to lose the tiny object. And they're vaguely pretty. It belatedly occurs to me that the smallest size would be useful for storing memory sticks, which I tend to drop into vases and teacups and then lose. I may go buy another one.

- We store some objects in the filing cabinet, because while they objects aren't files, they have a similar "we want it stored in an orderly place" vibe. That includes the CDs/DVDs for certain software, game boxes that have the Magic Key that you need to type in when you start the game (but nobody plays the game right now, so we don't want to keep the box at hand). It would include rarely-used keys, except we have another Super Secret Place for rarely-used keys that I won't reveal.

- The Halloween decorations were in a small box and we always lost them. The Christmas decorations were in three large boxes and we never had trouble finding them. So we stuffed the Halloween decorations into the Christmas decoration boxes.

- We store assorted travel-related items in a suitcase. We dump what we don't need for a particular trip out on the dining room table when we pack, then put it back in when we get back and unpack.

- I have a bunch of smallish (slightly smaller than shoeboxes) boxes for my sewing stuff--elastic and cording in this one, buttons in that one, beads in that one, pins and needles in that one--and they all live together. You could perhaps do the same with the calligraphy and fountain pen supplies.

- Candles and holders strike me as being entertaining gear. You could store them with the nice tablecloth and the fancy wineglasses or whatever else you have for entertaining gear. Part of the goal here is to make the category big enough to see, like my example about Halloween versus Christmas.

- You could similarly just get a fairly substantially-sized box for "whatsits"-- those not easily categorized items. Thus treating their resistance to categorization AS a category. Or maybe a "big whatsits" box for things like the vacuum attachment and that weird shelf thing that lets you air dry things in the dryer, and "small whatsits" for things like that weird little wrench that you use to un-stick the garbage disposal.

Nothing else is immediately coming to mind.
 

TesTeq

Registered
- We have the "hammer rule". We used to have a friend who just kept buying hammers until he had so many that when he went looking for one, one would probably turn up.
Do all his problems (or Projects) look like a nail? :)))
 

TesTeq

Registered
I am especially interested in you dealings with "nobody-knows-what-it-is" items. I'm guessing that you have a dedicated location for those. Should you decide to find one of those items how would you reference right away that they are there and not be wasting time for searching for them?
I store some "nobody-knows-what-it-is" cables in one box. I get rid of any other "nobody-knows-what-it-is" items. I don't expect that I'll be looking for any "nobody-knows-what-it-is" item because... I really don't know what it is. ;-)
 

Oogiem

Registered
I am just trying to prepare for just-in-case scenarios, as I find it very frustrating have no idea on and search for these types of items
This just caught my eye, most entities that have emergency shelters or storage for survival items also have attached to that area a chained in place detailed list of the contents. Also used in places where the checklists or instruction manuals are critical. I'm thinking of the emergency shutdown procedures for nuclear plants and lots of various government agency stuff. Several SF books use the same idea. So you can always create an inventory document and use that to refer to to find things. It's also helpful if you experience a loss, the insurance companies love detailed inventories.
 
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