2012-06-29-Where Did I Put It
Seminars@Hadley
Where Did I Put It?
Presented by
Polly Abbott
Moderated by
Larry Muffett
June 29, 2012
You are listening to Seminars@Hadley. This seminar is Where Did I Put It? presented by Polly Abbott, moderated by Larry Muffett.
Larry Muffett
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I’m a member of Hadley’s seminar team and I also work in the Curricular Affairs department here at the Hadley school. Today’s seminar topic is Where Did I Put It? Your presenter is Polly Abbott. I’m just pleased and tickled to death to have the opportunity to work with Polly. It’s a name that I’ve heard a lot since I’ve started at Hadley about ten months ago, and I finally got the opportunity to do this seminar with her. So again, I’m very pleased about this.
Polly is a certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist and she’s also the Director of Rehabilitation Services at the Guild for the Blind, which I understand we can still call it that for a couple of more days, and Polly might want to talk about that. Today, Polly is going to talk to us about developing strategies for using some organizational techniques to regain some independence and gain control of your environment. So now, let me welcome Polly, and I’m going to turn the microphone over to her.
Polly Abbott
Thanks, Larry. Just as a note, The Guild for the Blind is only going to be Guild for the Blind until the end of business today at 4:30 in Chicago. As of Monday, we are going to be known as Second Sense and if you want to hear why we’ve done that, there is a link on our website right now, GuildForTheBlind.org or Second-Sense.org.
I am going to...As Larry says, I have to hang on to the mic. I am used to speaking to groups and stopping to get feedback from them as I do my talks. So, today, as I speak, please know that if you text me, I can read the screen and see your comments as we go along. If you have things that you, in particular, would liketo ask as we go, I’ll do my best to keep up with those.
Now, alright. So, where did I put it? One of the reasons why I developed this seminar was because I get a lot of questions about dealing with finding things in the home and keeping track of the stuff we need to do in our lives, like mail and file things, and a lot of these strategies have basic concepts which I’m going to go through and provide some examples as we go.
The first question I usually get asked is “Why bother?” You know, it takes a lot of energy and effort to organize your house and label things. I get a lot of people who say in response to that, though, that they spend a lot of time searching their home for one item. So, some of the problems that people are having and these may be familiar to you:
Are you searching your whole home and finding the item you first looked for in the first place you looked? Are you or your family feeling frustrated or annoyed because you’re constantly having to come and ask them questions like, “Is this the tomato soup?” “Is this my red shirt?” “Where’s the TV remote?”? Are you tired of getting the hot sauce when it’s really the bottle of ketchup you want, and does trying to read and respond to piles of mail make you want to go postal?
And, the number one frustration that I hear from people is that they have systems for finding what they need in their home, but other people, their family or others coming into their home, are moving things around or messing up the system. So, let’s talk about some ways you can stop searching for things in your home.
You know, with vision loss, when you go into a room, you can’t just look around and find where things are. You have to know where they are or at least, have some way to see them when you get close. It is a little bit daunting trying to organize your whole living arrangement, so I really do recommend that you start with just one area, one that’s giving you particular frustration in the beginning. For a lot of people, it’s the fridge. You know, they can’t find what they’re looking for, the pantry, or maybe it’s your closet.
Also, as we go through the seminar, think about what works for you right now. It’s important to identify what is working, and then try to apply that to any other areas in your home. For example, one person I know, she has a great way of separating her laundry. She has a hamper for darks, a hamper for lights, and it has allowed her to save time on laundry day. So now, she has applied that system of pre-separation, in terms of separating the new food in her fridge from the older food in the fridge, so she doesn’t find that package of lettuce two weeks later.
The other thing you can try is if you have important items that you’re picking up and using around the home, by this, I mean things like your magnifier, perhaps it’s the cordless phone handset or the TV remote, think about having a designated home base in each room, and by home base, I mean a particular spot in each room that is the location that you are going to train yourself to get into the habit of placing this item on that spot.
For a lot of people, it’s going to be the nightstand in the bedroom or it’s going to be the coffee table in the living room. For those important items, stick them in that spot if you find yourself in that room, and that way, you can save yourself a few steps if you go back to the home base when you’re looking for that item. Because, these are things that it’s hard to keep in the same spot all the time because we use them.
Now, if you are low vision and you know that color contrast works for you, that’s probably your number one strategy that you’re going to use to help yourself stop searching for things, and by this I mean having something that’s a light color against a dark background or vice versa. So, if color contrast works for you, think about the color of the surfaces where you are currently setting things in your home.
For most people, it’s the kitchen table, the counter beside the phone, the coffee table, the bathroom vanity, and are they dark colored or light colored? Then, think about the items that you’re setting on those surfaces. Are they dark colored or light colored? It’s going to be much more difficult, if not impossible, for someone to see something like a black TV remote sitting on top of a dark coffee table. Or, for example, you scratch yourself a note on a little white piece of paper beside your phone, but the counter is white, and therefore the little scrap of paper disappears to your vision.
So, you need to do something to make those items stand out that are habitually sitting on those surfaces that are the same color. So, you can do one of two things. You can mark the item itself in such a way that you’re adding color to it. A really great thing that I like is the painter’s masking tape that you can get at any hardware store. It comes in a bunch of different colors. Also, duct tape, electrical tape, they also come in different colors, and the tape itself is pretty permanent, so you can pretty much, pick the color you want and stick a piece of it on the item just to make it stand out a little bit from the background.
Some other examples I have of that, for ladies, if you have a purse and you are trying to find your wallet or change purse inside, it’s dark in there. And, I know another person who has taken a bright colored ribbon, she has put it through the pull tab of her zipper, and now, when she looks inside her purse, she has a better chance of finding that wallet quickly because she can see the ribbon. But, she says, in dark restaurants and other places, she can simply put her hand in her purse and feel the texture of the silky ribbon to help her find her wallet quickly.
Another common problem in the home are electrical socket plates. A lot of people have trouble seeing those electric socket plates on the wall. They are generally put in to match the color of the paint. So, if this is you, you might want to think about getting a color contrasting socket so that you can see it on the wall. And, your magnifier, most people I know, they’re using their magnifier and they’re putting it down and then, they lose it. Tie something around the handle or put a piece of tape on it, so that no matter where your magnifier is sitting, it’s going to show up against the background.
Another way to stop searching for things is to compartmentalize. You want to add physical or tactual limits to the space in which something is kept. This works for low vision as well as for people with no vision. The compartment itself can be color contrasted to the environment. For example, again, with color contrast, if you put a doily or a tray or a placemat or something between that dark colored TV remote, for example, and the dark surface of the coffee table, you’re going to make that object stand out and you’re going to feel that tray or placemat.
So, this is what you use when color contrast just isn’t enough. Containers can be just about anything, empty shoe boxes, Tupperware, baskets, Ziploc bags, bowls, dishes. If it’s for things sitting out in your home, you can coordinate them so that they go with the décor and nobody even really realizes that they’re actually serving a very functional purpose. I would say that trays are probably the most versatile and useful item for people. They’ve got sides and the sides keep things from falling out, and they also limit the surface area in which you have to search.
So, for example, instead of sticking your keys or some other small item just on the surface of a counter or table, when you stick them in a small tray, you no longer have to search the entire counter. You just search inside the tray to find what you’re looking for. And possibly, most importantly, physical objects like trays or baskets or containers send a message to anybody else in your home that shouts out, “Hey, this is where this item belongs.”
So, if you are living in a situation where your significant other or family members tend to think that your idea of a good location for something is really not the best, you can try to get everyone in the habit of putting that item in a tray or some other compartment, and then it just sends a message. You know, nobody else can see your invisible “X marks the spot” on a table, but everybody can see that basket or that tray that you have now decided to use as a storage place for that item in your home.
You know, trays also keep small items from rolling away. If you are dropping pills or medication, think about storing your pill bottles on a tray, but also, opening up those pill bottles over a top of a tray to keep anything that falls out from rolling away. And, trays are also great for the kitchen counter because they’re going to contain any spills and any mess that are happening as you’re preparing dinner.
So, some other examples of compartmentalization, using a box or a tray to hold the mail, and actually, I think this one’s pretty important because I know a lot of people who have kept their mail in a stack on the edge of their dining room table and it’s easy for pieces of mail to fall off the table, slide under the table, or chair, or someplace else where they are not seen, not noticed, and then, you have that bill that goes unpaid. So, if you keep your mail in a container, that is not going to happen to you
In the fridge which, I must say, is a particularly challenging place to organize when you are living with other people, you can buy these plastic boxes at some hardware stores that are see-through, but they are specifically made to help you keep the fridge organized and some people I know have his and hers boxes for the fridge.
So, for example, you’ve got particular items that you want to be able to find that perhaps no one else in your family cares to use. Well then, you get yourself a specific container and then you put your item in there, and then there’s no more searching and no more arguments when you’re faced with the frustration of finding the hot sauce.
IKEA has a lot of really good little boxes that are made out of wood that have multiple drawers. These are good for things in the bathroom. You know? They’ve got six little drawers. You can do one for your makeup, one for your Band-Aids, one for your hairpins, or whatever you think it’s going to fit. And, I do know some older ladies who love their fisherman’s tackle box, and they use all of the little sections in the tackle box to keep their pairs of earrings together with the matching necklace or other pieces of jewelry.
Okay, location, this is important. You know, everyone should think about making, “A place for everything and everything in your place” their motto, because it helps you stop searching for things. But, location can also have meaning and assist you in finding things, but also identifying them. One of the first steps though, is thinking about where you are currently storing things in your house. Ask yourself, “Is it logically placed in terms of where you’re going to be using it?”
You want to save yourself a few steps. You want things to make sense. Think about things that you have to walk too far to get and see if there is a better place to store them. And, the next step, easier said than done, de-clutter. There are a lot of self-help books out there that are useful. There’s Organizing for Dummies, Organizing for Idiots, but they all say the same thing. They all say the less you have, the less you need to sort through to find out what you need.
And, in particular, I’ve noticed over my years doing rehab that spices in the kitchen and makeup for ladies are two areas where a lot of people possess far more items than they actually use, and by the time that they do get around to using some of them, usually the item has expired. So, you really do want to be on top of the things that you have in your house and only keeping what you need. Although, I can practically sense people saying that, “It’s much easier said than done” and that’s true. Something we all need to work on.
Location though, can also give information about identification, as long as you approach it with a sense of purpose. For example, this is already a concept that’s in place. You go to the grocery store, for example, and I think pretty much everybody knows that if you’re reaching for that carton of milk, you’re going to find the fresher items in the back of the dairy compartment. So, that’s an example of how location has given meaning to a particular object.
So, you can apply that idea to things in your own home as well. Some examples are, you know, the hot sauce bottle is always placed near the hinge on the fridge door and the ketchup, you could decide to place near the handle of the fridge, so, further out. Although, if you really like hot sauce, like I do, you’re going to be placing it further out where it’s easier to get.
If you have items that are similar inside your fridge, orange juice and milk sometimes come in very similar cartons. The orange juice, you could decide to always place on the right side of the fridge and the orange juice is always on the left. Of course, if you live in Canada and your milk is coming in bags, you have no problem with this.
Clothing is organized in similar fashions. If you like, you can decide, if you are low vision and maybe seeing the difference between black and navy blue is troublesome, you could get in the habit of always having your black clothes on the right and your navy blue on the left and keep that pattern throughout your clothing. So, if it’s in a closet, if it’s in a drawer, or even with your shoes, you always maintain that anything black is on the right and blue is on the left.
For safety for toxic substances, this is one particular example where you want to be very careful, and it’s important to organize your toxic substances in a logical location because you don’t want to end up spraying house plants with the 409 cleaner instead of insecticide. So, you might want to keep your plant care things in a separate location from your cleaning supplies.