Put it back
A simple way to save time and energy — a productivity hack
I’m not a very ‘organised’ and tidy person. My friend, Jummy, takes the award for that one. She’s literally borderline in need of holding but that’s a story for another day. 🤍 Because I am very aware of my limitations, especially regarding organisation and time usage, I created a simple rule to help me through life. Put. It. Back. So far, it has worked and helped me through impossible schedules and workloads.
The only problem with this hack is that I’m not the only person that exists in the world. That means other people do not ‘put it back’, which often short-circuits my brain. I love to automate processes and help my ‘scatter-brained-self’ collect everything in neat mental piles. But you see people, they don’t really know or care about your mental processes oh — it doesn’t matter how effective they are. People just be peopleing every day and in every way.
Put. It. Back. is taking a cup from the counter and remembering to drop it right where it ought to be. It is taking the wide-toothed comb and consciously choosing to recall where you found it, then putting it there even while you’re getting set. It is using makeup products but not littering the whole bed/floor/countertop with them but even if we do, we remember to close and cap everything neatly and stash them no matter how much of a hurry we’re in. It is deliberate discipline to shorten the journey to looking for things next time, reduce the chances of accidents happening, and help things last longer. No, it is not OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a condition that requires professional assessment and diagnosis, please stop giving yourself labels because they sound cool. Mental disorders and illnesses are not a joke.
How a colleague got me into trouble with her meddling.
I juggled three impossible roles while working at MKA. It was in the heat of being an administrative assistant, a marketing intern, a full-time caregiver to four boys with a diverse range of disabilities, and the interim ‘school nurse’, that I had this encounter. I use this quoted title loosely because I repeatedly told everyone in school I was only a first aider, but I must confess that my workload was way above the pay grade of a first aider. I had more skills than the Nigerian Red Cross First Aid training offered, thanks to my dad. The real school nurse was on bed rest because she had Hyperemesis gravidarum, so I had to step in because cerebral palsy seizures don’t take a break, and neither do children who randomly hurt themselves during play or lessons.
One Friday, I had to leave school early, and it messed up my routine. I closed early twice a week but the school bus had to pick up students who were out for a field trip. So my boys and I had to be dropped off earlier that day. I had just tended to a nauseous, hyperactive Ethiopian boy of 10 and was writing in the record book when the bus driver came to round me up. I quickly locked the door and hung the key on the hook with the label ‘sick bay’ in one of the speech therapists’ rooms. Shortly after I got home, a colleague called to ask me where the keys to the sickbay were because she was doing a school tour for some parents and organisations. I told her where to find them.
Monday came around and after my morning rounds with the cleaners, the kitchen staff, disbursing stationery and other requisition requests to teachers and therapists, I went to the sick bay but I couldn’t get in. “That’s Strange” I thought to myself. Perhaps Lady L forgot to drop the keys. I sent a short prayer up that no child would need care today until I found them. I wasn’t so lucky because as I got back to my desk, Madam Principal was waiting for me, a screaming child with a bruised knee on her lap. I was so thankful I stashed some Drez, antiseptic, gauze, cotton and plaster in my cupboard at admin on Friday. I couldn’t put it back in the flurry activities that day and it saved my hide.
As the day progressed, realization started setting in. Panic started slowly like a crawling caterpillar on a green leaf. Because I go to different parts of the school every day and I had thoughts like “Maybe I forgot it in the cleaning storeroom or the stationery store or on my line manager’s desk or maybe I dropped it off at the kitchen counter or in Aunty Tina’s class when K had a seizure. Or my friend’s class when I visited.’ floating through my head.
By the time I’d gone to all these places, the bathrooms and corners combined, I was in a knot of negative feelings. I whispered it to my line manager at the end of the workday, as we were working late. He got concerned. ‘Maybe you went home with it’ he said. I said ‘yeah and Lady L is sick so she can’t come in to school so I don’t know who else to ask.’
The thing is it was not in the house. It was not anywhere. I had to report it to the facility manager. I thought I was going to die of anxiety and worry. I checked everywhere. Did everything. I felt fear, shame, and the whole spectrum of emotions. It didn’t help that this person I reported to is a known yeller.
I started second-guessing my sanity and memory capacity. Perhaps taking care of these boys was taking a mental toll on me and I was slowly going gaga with no one to tell me. I felt so foolish and very careless and at the same time, I knew for certain I didn’t drop that key.
It will surprise you to know that a speech therapist (one that I asked if she had seen the key) was the one who took the key and forgot to put it back! I was livid. How did I find out? Lady L came back to work and said ‘Did you ask A?’ I said ‘yeah, she even made fun of me, you know she’s condescending.’ Lady L fought for me and found out that it was A who took the keys and kept them in her cubicle. Guys, I had to start praying for divine patience because, the things I went through those 3 days? Ghetto. I mean, we found the keys just when the man was at the verge of breaking the lock. We had tried every single spare key in the basket. It was a scene and it was embarrassing.
Anyway, the moral of the story? Don’t slap anyone at work. JK. I learnt to actually protect myself in the place of work because not everyone will look out for you. And! Please put things back where you find them. Help our neurospicy brains. Thank you.
Have you ever been put in a tight spot by a coworker? What’s your reaction to putting things in their designated places? Are you chill or do you go like a minion with Dr Nefarious’ grape jam as I do? Please let me know!
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