While doing my daily routine of locking up my bicycle at a train stop prior to getting on the train, I consciously noticed an inefficiency,analyzed the reason for it, found it wanting, and corrected it. Previously I have only done this after “sitting down and thinking for five minutes” i.e. setting a timer and writing out logical conclusions in pursuit of a pre-stated goal. I have two U-locks which look different, and two keys which look the same. For a while I marked one of them a different color in order to distinguish them, but the marking wears off within weeks and I’ve abandoned this approach, instead I just try one key at a time, for a usual maximum of two tries per key (three if I used the wrong angle with the first key). This happens every weekday and most weekends, twice or more per day. I noticed myself doing this and asked “why?”. The answer is that so that when I need to lend someone my lock set, it is easy to hand them both over at once because both keys are on the same keyring. But this is an infrequent occurrence. I was optimizing for the wrong thing. So now the keys are on different keyrings of my pocket keyring chain, because while markings wear off, position will stay static unless the metal breaks.
I wonder if there’s something like that which I have optimized for a low-value convenience. I have a backpack and a purse which serve almost equivalent purposes and I keep moving things between them when I have a need that requires the other bag. It happens about 2-3 times a week. I’ll often need the first bag again right after, and I won’t have it. I was optimizing for not having to carry multiple things, but perhaps I should keep the purse as a consistent subset even if it will take up more space in the backpack.
While doing my daily routine of locking up my bicycle at a train stop prior to getting on the train, I consciously noticed an inefficiency,analyzed the reason for it, found it wanting, and corrected it. Previously I have only done this after “sitting down and thinking for five minutes” i.e. setting a timer and writing out logical conclusions in pursuit of a pre-stated goal. I have two U-locks which look different, and two keys which look the same. For a while I marked one of them a different color in order to distinguish them, but the marking wears off within weeks and I’ve abandoned this approach, instead I just try one key at a time, for a usual maximum of two tries per key (three if I used the wrong angle with the first key). This happens every weekday and most weekends, twice or more per day. I noticed myself doing this and asked “why?”. The answer is that so that when I need to lend someone my lock set, it is easy to hand them both over at once because both keys are on the same keyring. But this is an infrequent occurrence. I was optimizing for the wrong thing. So now the keys are on different keyrings of my pocket keyring chain, because while markings wear off, position will stay static unless the metal breaks.
Kudos for your reoptimization!
I wonder if there’s something like that which I have optimized for a low-value convenience. I have a backpack and a purse which serve almost equivalent purposes and I keep moving things between them when I have a need that requires the other bag. It happens about 2-3 times a week. I’ll often need the first bag again right after, and I won’t have it. I was optimizing for not having to carry multiple things, but perhaps I should keep the purse as a consistent subset even if it will take up more space in the backpack.