There's plenty of reasons you might not be looking at something when you need to grab it. You could be functionally blind for any number of reasons, such as taking off glasses. You might not be able to look at it because you're multitasking, or it could be late night and you simply don't want to turn on the lights. It might be inconvenient to look at, such as grabbing something from the bottom of a bag. It might be slightly awkward, like during a conversation. No one will fault you for needing to look away to search for something, but it slows down the conversation regardless.
Organize things so you don't have to be looking at them. At minimum, everything should be in a known location relative to other known locations. If something doesn't have a home, it'll take much longer to feel around for it than look around.
Ideally, distinguish between identical objects in non-visual ways as well. For example, a bit of string on a zipper pull so you can grab it from further and tell it apart from others. I don't buy duplicates of small containers anymore because they get moved around so often I want each to be uniquely identifiable down to the texture.
This has limits, a series of colored pens is probably going to be identically shaped and textured. Besides, there probably isn't a case where you care about the color and aren't looking at them. But maybe if you constantly switch between a few fixed pen colors, it's worth assigning them an order so you always know where each is. Adapt to your needs.
You can still supplement with visual labels. Indeed, for infrequently used, shared, and large scale organization, enabling quick visual scans is ideal.
But for the basic few things you need to grab everyday? Give yourself the flexibility to look away.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
I wonder if someone who knows me well in person would be able to recognize I'm behind this blog, unprompted. I don't think it would be that difficult.
I have the same interests and philosophies, only shared in differently filtered ways.
Security through obscurity, I suppose.
- Rew