I presume the following situation is something many of my neurodivergent friends can relate to (and possibly some normies as well) but I still think it’s worth it for me to talk about. Partly because its such a common occurrence but primarily because it illustrates the problems with well-intentioned systems that unfortunately end up doing more harm than good.
I was preparing to head out. I’d gotten dressed, collected all my things and put on my shoes and jacket, all I needed were my keys. But when I looked at my desk where I usually drop them they weren’t there. Alright, maybe they’re in my jacket? They weren’t, but I found the following: my brown pair of gloves that I started wearing weeks ago because I’d lost my left black glove, and my lost left black glove. No keys though.
I checked my other coats and jackets despite not having worn them for over a month, nope. They weren’t in my pants pockets, my other pants pockets, my sweatpants… Maybe my roommate had borrowed them? Nope. At this point I was getting a bit agitated. Frustrated because I couldn’t find my keys and warm form running around searching. I scanned my surroundings one last time, even checked under the bed and moved stuff around on the desk to make sure the keys weren’t hiding underneath something but no. I conceded defeat, undressed, and started cleaning, systematically going through everything and every place not just looking for the keys but also undoing some of the disorder that comes with just existing.
Imagine my dismay when I finally found the keys in the little basket specifically designated to hold my keys, wallet, passport, and other everyday carry items. I even remembered congratulating myself for putting them in their spot for once.
So, what happened here? In my opinion, this is an example of bad system implementation. The core concept is good, each thing has its own place, keeps things organized. However there comes a point where that system becomes more disruptive than helpful. Take holiday decorations for example. Most of the year they live in a box deep in a closet or similar and are only brought out very occasionally. And the same goes for most things. They spend most of their time not actively being used. But on the other extreme there are mobile phones. I presume most people carry their phones on their person most of the time. It doesn’t have one dedicated spot where you put it away when you clean, rather it exists in a perpetual, more or less in use, state.
I want to propose that most things can be put on what I’m going to call a ‘use frequency spectrum’, and the more frequently you use something, the more prone you are to lose it. I misplace my phone several times a day, but usually it takes only a few minutes to find it since the time between setting it down and realizing that I need it is quite short. But the keys… they only get used a few times a day, and when I don’t leave the house very often as little as a few times a week! And the obvious impulse is to give them a spot where they live, where you can put them so you don’t loose them but in the time it takes between unlocking the door, undressing, especially if you have groceries that need to be put away I’ve had uncountable opportunities to just put my keys somewhere because I need both hands free and rarely, if ever is it in the key basket. Most often they end up on my desk, or in my pants or jacket. And by the time I realize that I need them I have no idea where they are.
There are a whole bunch of items that exist in a limbo on the use frequency spectrum. Not as often as my phone but often enough that trying to put them away creates more problems than it solves. A sounder strategy would be to create a system that works with established patterns of behavior instead of working against them. I’ve already done this with frying pans. Yes, just follow along.
I cook basically almost every day, but whenever I’d finish, I would just leave the pan in the sink because my scattered brain had already moved on. I never cleaned the pan or put it away as I had intended to, instead it just sat there until the next time I needed it so instead I just… let it sit on the stove. If it wasn’t super gross of course. This freed up space both in my head and my sink for other things.
Now, this isn’t perfectly analogous to misplacing your keys, but it’s an example of one of those items on the use frequency spectrum that fall in that in between limbo, and how I’ve adjusted my system to work along side my brain and behavior instead of fighting it. The same could be done for the keys. I could move the basket from my shelf to my desk, or decide the keys live permanently in the jacket, or something else I’ve not thought of yet. I’ll have to experiment.
Sergej Tanja Brändén 