I’ve been seeing ads for devices that you attach to something you might lose and these things help you find those lost things. On the surface, they sound kind of interesting, but me being me it seems like people who need such a thing would probably lose such a thing.

I’m not picking on people who lose things. I do it all the time. What I do when I lose something is to stop, think, retrace my steps, and usually find what I lost. I’m proud to say that of all the things I’ve lost, none are still missing. I’m the type of person that has a place for just about everything that I use on a regular basis. The things I don’t use all the time go to another place that we’ll talk about later. Those everyday things I’m pretty comfortable with.

My vehicle has certain things that have their place. Things I need when I’m in the Jeep. At home, there’s my contact lens supplies, my razor, etc. You know. The things you use every day. As long as they’re where they belong, I’m good.

Here’s what happens. They move. For a while, I blamed Kathy. I was sure she was putting these home things in what she considered a better place. You know. Better for both of us. More convenient. Easier to get at. Turns out she was not guilty. It was me. Now we get to what is really disturbing about this whole situation. It’s me. I build my life around the things that I need being where I know where they are, and then I put them somewhere else.

It’s interesting when you really examine yourself and what you do. When I encounter a situation where my something is not where it’s supposed to be, I’m shut down. I have absolutely no idea where to go from there. No idea where to look. I’m done. The first thought used to be, “Who moved the _____?” Now, it’s “Where the Hell did I put that?”

Eventually I find my stuff. It always turns up and when it does, I remember exactly why I put it there. There could be hours or days, weeks or months between the disappearance and the discovery, but the things always turn up.

The other thing that’s happening is that I find myself doing things that make perfect sense at the time, but make no sense at all at a later date.

This usually happens when I’m reorganizing. I decide it’s time to get things together that belong together and end what appears to be a mish-mash situation. I might put all my saws in one place instead of having the saw I use most right handy in the garage, the outside saws in the greenhouse and the ones that are rarely used in the storage building.

Having all the saws in one place makes sense until I need the one that’s usually in the garage. After searching and searching, I locate that saw I use often and wonder what I was thinking. That saw goes back to the garage and the cycle begins again.

Another time, I decided to organize my funnels. Again, I had a funnel in the garage that was handy. There were several funnels in the storage building and a couple in the house. It made sense at the time to have all the funnels together in the storage building. When I needed a funnel, that would be the place to go. Unfortunately, it was months before the need for a funnel came up and by that time, I had no idea where they were.

Finally, there’s the closet.

It’s a walk in closet, but it’s not that big.

For years, I’ve done my own laundry. That has been the subject of several previous articles. With a really busy summer and taking on a new business, the laundry got ahead of me and over my objections, Kathy just took care of it. That’s what she does for me. She just takes care of things. I love her dearly for it, but worry that she works so hard at everything else, it seems like she shouldn’t have to do my laundry.

Anyway, I had a hanger system in the closet. One area of hangers was my Navy T-shirts. Another area was dress shirts that I most likely wear and another was dress shirts I probably won’t wear but keep around just in case. I also had jeans that were not broken in on one shelf, jeans that were broken in just right on another and jeans with holes and tears in them that feel really good to wear on another shelf. I had a system that really wasn’t a system, but it worked for me.

Clothes have gone missing. I know they must be in there, but I’ll be damned if I can find them.

All the dress shirts are hanging together. All the T-shirts are hanging together. The jeans are all together. But there’s stuff missing. My favorite Navy T that I wear when I think about Jesse or the Seabees can’t be found. I pull down a pair of just right broken in jeans to wear and they‘ve got holes in them. The dress shirt that I feel most comfortable in is not where it always used to be and I have no idea where it is.

To be very, very clear, Kathy’s system makes way more sense than mine ever did, but I’m having trouble adjusting. (And I really, really appreciate her doing my laundry.) I guess what’s happened here is that I’ve gone my whole life with an organization system that really wasn’t a system at all and when I try to get organized, I become disorganized. Life is hard.

Bill Packard lives in Union and is the founder of BPackard.com.  He is a speaker, author, small business coach and consultant.