The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

A care­ful­ly com­bined collection

Over the past few years, I have grown increas­ing­ly fond of the phe­nom­e­na of ​“kits” and I have praised the act of putting what you need for a par­tic­u­lar activ­i­ty togeth­er into a kit in both videos, blogs, and newslet­ters. By the word ​“kit” I am refer­ring to what the Cam­bridge dic­tio­nary describes as ​“a set of things, such as tools or clothes, used for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose or activ­i­ty”. A phys­i­cal kit can, for instance, be put in a box, a bag, or a plas­tic fold­er, while a dig­i­tal kit can be com­prised of a num­ber of short­cuts in a dig­i­tal fold­er or some oth­er dig­i­tal location.

More phys­i­cal in a dig­i­tal world

As I notice how much more I need tech­ni­cal solu­tions, pro­grams, func­tions, and ser­vices to do my job, I have also noticed how exceed­ing­ly won­der­ful it is to always find what I need instant­ly when I am going to give a lec­ture, record a video, send a book some­one ordered, and so on.

If you some­times have to spend unnec­es­sary time look­ing for the right things, I can hearti­ly rec­om­mend putting togeth­er more kits than you have at present.

How? Well …

Do this

If you want to make more kits that will spare you of those min­utes, or hours, look­ing for things that should be easy to find, then do this:

1. Have a look around your office (if you have such a place), through your brief­case, or in oth­er places where you keep things to remind your­self of what the phys­i­cal things, items, or gad­gets you some­times need in your work are.
2. If they are more spread out than you would like them to be, gath­er them in kits. You can form a kit in one out of two ways:
   • If you already know what you will need in a cer­tain recur­ring sit­u­a­tion, gath­er the things you then need in a kit. For instance, I have a small ​“lec­ture bag” with all the items I need when giv­ing a lecture.
   • If you do not know when you will need the things but want to look in few­er places than you usu­al­ly have to when you do need them, gath­er things that are sim­i­lar in a kit. I have a kit in my bag con­tain­ing tech things I might not use very often (such as spe­cial adap­tors, cords, and oth­er such items) but which are absolute­ly amaz­ing to have when cer­tain unfore­seen things hap­pen. Anoth­er one of my kits is a ​“body and clothes”-kit con­sist­ing of nee­dle and thread, band-aids, med­i­cines, a clothes brush, and oth­er things that can come in handy at any time.
3. Place the items the kits con­sist of in some kind of con­tain­er that is appro­pri­ate for the places in which you need them. Open box­es are great if the kit will be placed on your desk at all times, but a kit that will be car­ried around might need to be placed in a small bag or seal­able con­tain­er. This makes per­fect sense to you, I am sure.

Find­ing it faster

If you com­pile kits for items that are either sim­i­lar or which you know you need in par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tions, you will find what you need faster when com­menc­ing cer­tain tasks which in turn are com­plet­ed with greater speed and ease.

You will waste less time look­ing, solve more prob­lems on the go, and feel less affect­ed by mishaps. Your days will, on the whole, become more to your lik­ing and you will suc­ceed bet­ter in what you decide to do.

What’s your way?

How have you put togeth­er your kits? Please tell me all about them in an email.

(By the way, have you seen this kit of mine?)