I have a 5-drawer dresser where various things like socks, underwear, undershirts, etc are kept. It is well-organized. If you asked me right now which drawer my black socks are in, I could tell you immediately. It has been the same configuration for years.
But, when I go to gets socks or an undershirt or whatever, I almost invariably open the wrong drawer. Often I will then basically start opening drawers apparently at random until I finally open the correct one.
Now, if I just stop and think about it for a split second, I will open the correct drawer the first time. However, I don’t stop and think, for reasons I can’t figure out. I just grab the first drawer handle I reach, even though it’s an 80% chance it’s the wrong one.
This isn’t just in the morning, for example, when I might still be groggy. It’s at all times of day. And I’ve always done this as far as I can remember.
Does anybody else have this problem? It drives me crazy.
Could it be as simple as you have developed a habit of reaching for an intentionally random drawer, and wanting to break your habit?
Or maybe you could use organized frequent meditation sessions to increase the time you consider before doing anything impulsive. The Tibetan monks who meditate a lot, are significantly less likely to do something on pure impulse - it seems that the mind training they get from meditation is what makes the difference. Except they’ve done it every day for years, so a couple of sessions likely won’t help much.
I had a cabinet door I opened first no matter what I wanted. I solved it by putting nothing in there I could possibly ever need daily. It is full of cook books. + cook books are all in one place!
I think it’s like you say, not thinking. Just going through an oft repeated exercise.
I’m guilty of that. Even as I’m opening it I’m thinking to myself, “this is the wrong drawer”! :smack: But it’s just the 3 center drawers. I’m good with the bottom and top drawers.
I guess I am more or less the opposite - I have kept my stuff in exactly the same drawers for so long that I reach for the correct drawer on auto-pilot. I have most of my stuff organized like that.
The disadvantage of that, of course, is that everything is in one of two places - where it should be, or hopelessly lost. My glasses are either on my nose, on the night table, or lost. I have no idea in the world where to begin looking. My keys and wallet have to be on the right side of the dresser. Move them a foot, to the left of the jewelry case - hopelessly lost.
My wife and I had a somewhat tense discussion the one time she cleaned my office at home. She doesn’t do that anymore.
I do the same thing! Maybe not my undies drawer which is the drawer I use every morning on auto-pilot, but socks, workout clothes and pajamas are the next three drawers and I get them confused all the time. I go in the socks drawer every day when it’s not summer, but still if I’m going to get a sports bra I’ll open the sock drawer first. If I need fresh jammies I’ll go to the workout drawer instead.
It’s like my dresser is a complete surprise to me.
I hate that I always find the thing I want in the last place I look.
My theory is that I start out looking in the correct drawer; it’s just that the item I’m looking for teleports to another receptacle as soon as my receptacle-opening intentions become clear.
I’m seeing more of a Shroedinger’s Cat paradox. The black socks are in a quantum state of in the drawer and simultaneously not in the drawer, as long as the drawer remains closed. As soon as a drawer is opened, the paradox (or pair-of-sox:D) is resolved.
In fact this is exactly the same method of finding clothes that drawer-users employ. They just add a level of obfuscation or indirection by hiding each of the piles in a box.
I’m not defending them, just outing them as covert users of our system.
I do this in the kitchen. There are 4 drawers next to the stove - miscellaneous utensils, dish cloths, paper goods, baking dishes. I set this up 15 years ago. It has never changed. I will almost always open the dishcloth drawer when I actually want the paper goods drawer, and visa versa. I just now realized that I do this in my 4 drawer dresser, I will almost always open the incorrect drawer of the middle two. It’s like my brain can remember what is in the top and bottom drawers, but can’t remember what’s in the middle two.
