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thenewindianwoman

Do you lose things often ?

Updated: Sep 19, 2021

How to prevent losing things
Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash

Listen to the podcast episode here :


Did you listen to Episode 1 of New Indian Woman podcast ? This episode focused on the topic of How to stop wasting time looking for things. I chose this as the topic for my first episode for 3 reasons : 1) this is a very common problem. You may be very organized and may handle things in an efficient manner, but you may end up wasting a lot of time searching for things. Reason 2) this is a low hanging fruit and can be addressed easily. And Reason 3) In Indian homes, the woman of the house is always called upon by rest of the family to find the lost things. And if your family member keep on calling you to search for things, doesn’t it mean your time is being taken for granted ? You may not even realize this !


The first thing for any person and especially, for an Indian woman, is to value her time. Through how you use your time, you are definitely making a very bold statement! So, wasting time due to inefficiency is to be avoided. This is regardless of whether the inefficiency originates from you or from rest of the family. You have the power to influence this!


In this podcast episode, we examine techniques to make sure we do not end up searching for things. Plus, we focus on how this can be done involving the whole family. And more importantly, this is not a memory technique.


The episode details the concept of identifying permanent homes for categories of things. Remember - this not identifying homes for each and every item in the house, but for categories of things. The categories are say, stationery, keys, certificates, ID proofs, passport size photos and so on. To help you create this list with all the categories and their permanent homes, I have created a free download called MyStuff@Home. Suggest you follow these steps -


  • Please click here to download

  • Take a printout of MyStuff@Home sheet

  • Fill it up with the permanent homes against the categories I have listed.

  • Customise MyStuff@Home for your house - I have tried to include most of the categories of items relevant for an Indian home. Feel free to add a few more categories that are relevant for your home.

  • On the last page of the MyStuff@Home download, you could note down the items that you store in an attic/loft/cupboard that you don’t access frequently.

  • Keep this sheet next to that loft or paste it on that cupboard.

  • You may even want to take extra copies of this last page in the MyStuff@Home download for the many cupboards/lofts in your house.

The next step is to create a pending file. How do you do this ?


You need to have 2 sections in the Pending File - a Reference section with the MyStuff@Home sheet and copies of important documents like PAN card, Aadhaar. The Active section is for all the pending paperwork.


Keep this pending file in an easily accessible place. And slowly nudge every family member to keep on adding things to the pending file. It may be an invitation card that comes by post, a note from school, bills etc. The idea is to avoid losing these things by leaving them around the house .


And then, we talked about how to go about clearing the pending file once a week. Once again, to be done with the family around.


The MyStuff@Home and the PendingFile Process are sure ways to help you regain time - yes, regain all the time you earlier spent searching around. And of course, the benefits of not having the stress of searching!!


It would be a wonderful family activity to fill up the MyStuff@Home list and create a PendingFile for your house from old shoe box or old containers. Well, life is not waiting to happen after you sort out everything. All this is part of life and your children are going to benefit immensely from this. And of course, they will enjoy the process of creating MyStuff@Home list and the Pending File. So what are you waiting for ?


Listen to the podcast episode, download the MyStuff@Home sheet and get started!! And do write to me at krishna@thenewindianwoman.com with queries , if any. Do feel free to share your experience by commenting to this blog article. And do not forget to share this learning with your friends and family!

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