Helpful Reminders On How To Keep Your Reusable Gear In Mind
You’re probably trying hard to do what you can for the environment, but it can be tough to remember your reusable gear when you have a thousand other things you need to keep track of in a given day.
If you find yourself forgetting your reusable water bottle, bag, or coffee mug every day, you may want to follow these tips before you leave your home. It can take some practice to get into the habit of bringing your reusable gear with you, but with time, you’ll be able to build it into an automatically ingrained habit.
Here are some tips on how not to forget your reusable gear - even when you’re in a rush!
Keep Designated Spots For Commonly Used Goods
Reusable Gear Reminder Tips: Keep Water Bottles In Car Or Bag
In order to successfully remember your reusable gear each time you leave the house, you need to tap into your knowledge of how your brain - and your memory - actually works.
Often, when you’re having trouble remembering something, it’s because your brain is having issues encoding a memory - typically because you're distracted by something else. When you attempt to retrieve the memory, there’s not enough there for your brain to latch on to, and then you’re stuck forgetting the things you need day after day, week after week.
Because of that, being conscious of your actions when you’re in the moment can be helpful. Rather than multitasking your way through the day, try to do one thing at once. This can help you remember where you put things when you set them down and need to go back for them later!
Of course, you can’t always prevent forgetting things. Sometimes you will be unconsciously distracted by something - you might have been tired or hungry or even just smelling something cooking in your kitchen when you set down your reusable coffee mug.
It can help to try to remember those elements but when you can’t, there’s one tried and true trick that will almost always help you remember your reusable gear - even if you’re distracted.
Put your stuff back in the same space each and every time. Ideally, keep designated spots for all of the goods that are most commonly used.
Reusable Gear Reminder Tips
If you always find yourself forgetting things, take some of the load off your brain and minimize the amount of work it has to do in order to encode a memory. Keep everything in the same place (ideally a palace you see regularly) so you don’t forget it on the way out the door. By keeping stuff in the same place every time, it will not only help you remember where you put things - but will also keep you more organized, too.
Keeping your reusables with your keys can help too. As long as you plan on driving to wherever it is you need to go, it is virtually impossible for you to forget your keys - your car isn’t going to start without them!
Therefore, if you want to remember to bring something, it’s a good idea to stash them with your keys (or some other item that it would be impossible for you to leave home without, such as your contacts or a pair of glasses).
You can even try creating a mental hook for names of things you need to remember. No matter what you choose, playing these little name or word games with yourself can be helpful in remembering things.
Keep Reusable Bags In Your Car
Many grocery stores have now done away with the standard plastic or paper bags that were given out with every order. Instead, you’re expected to bring your own eco-friendly reusable bag.
If you’re like many people, you always forget to put the reusable bags back in your car when you head out to the grocery store - so you have to pay a hefty fee in order to get disposable bags at the grocery store.
An easy way to get around this is to always keep reusable bags in the car. Set a remind run your phone to stash your tote bags back in the vehicle after you’ve unlocked your groceries.
You can also get a grocery bag that’s meant to fold up easily inside another bag, like your purse.
If you always find yourself forgetting the reusable bags in the car once you get to the grocery store, that’s an easy fix. Just force yourself to walk back to the car to get it! Again, having a fold-up bag can help reduce this inconvenience, since you can just stash the bag inside your purse, which you’ll rarely forget to bring inside with you.
If you don’t keep your reusable bag in your car, that’s fine, too. Another tip you can use to remember it is to keep it by other items you need to bring to the grocery store, like your grocery list. There’s a chance you might forget both of those necessary items, but by linking them together, your odds of forgetting them will be much lower.
Pre-Pack a Little To-Go Pouch With Eco-Friendly Goods
Pre-Pack Lunch With Reusable Lunch Gear and Healthy Snacks
If you know you’re going to be out and about for the day, save yourself the extra time, money, and inconvenience of buying disposable products like a water bottle, napkin, and straw. Instead, pack yourself a to-go pouch with eco-friendly goods.
You might want to stash items like bamboo cutlery, cloth napkins, stainless steel straws, or beeswax wrap for leftovers in this pouch. You can put it all into a reusable bag and by keeping it always packed and ready to go, all you have to do is grab it and put it in your bag when you leave the house.
As soon as you get home from your outing, you can wash it, repack it, and put it back in your tote bag - that way, you always have it when you need it at a moment’s notice.
Keep Empty Water Bottle In Bag
Drinking out of a plastic water bottle isn’t just bad for the environment- it’s not the best for our health, either.
Helpful Reminder Tips To Bring and Use Your Reusable Gear
Water bottles are some of the easiest disposable products to use but they're also some of the easiest to forget. However, you can cut down on how much you forget these items by keeping an empty water bottle in your bag at all times. Sure, you’ll have to refill it - but most places don’t care if you ask to do this.
Don’t want to have to clean that water bottle all the time? We get it - they can be annoying to clean! Fortunately, there is now a company out there that specializes in self-cleaning gear. You can get a self-cleaning water bottle that will neutralize almost all of its odor-causing bacteria with UV-C light. It will purify the water in less than a minute with the press of a button.
Zero work for you - while also better for your health and the environment. That’s worth the money for sure!
Try to make your reusable gear as exciting as possible. Whether it’s the water bottle you’re going to keep in your bag or something else that you want to keep track of, investing in interesting things can help you make things more “real” and help you to remember those things later on. Try buying a fun-colored water bottle or one that infuses fruit flavors into your drink. Consider a coffee cup with a memorable saying on it.
Whatever you do, the more fun you can make it, the better the chances are that you will actually remember it!
Keep a Reusable Mug or Water Bottle at Work
If you work in an office, there’s a good chance that you’re spending a lot of your time walking back to the vending machine for another bottle of water or cup of coffee.
Save yourself the time - and spend it on work projects, or better yet, chatting with your coworkers - by keeping a glass water bottle and reusable mug right on your desk at work. You can wash it at work or buy one of the self-cleaning options. That way, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting your gear at home! You’ve got two sets to do with as you please.
If you’d rather just keep one set and schlep it back and forth between your office and home, it’s not the end of the world. If your coffee shop has a dine-in option, you may be able to just use the ceramic mugs they have there. If not, get a coffee cup without the plastic lid and make it your goal to do better next time.
Set an Alarm
Set an Alarm To Remind You Not To Forget Your Reusable Gear
Don’t put all the burden on your brain to remember everything that needs to be remembered - sometimes, you need a little digital assistance, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Don’t be afraid to set reminders if you need them. Some people set an alarm on their phones to remind them to take their birth control at the same time, while others create recurring calendar alerts for things that need to be remembered on a weekly basis.
Take advantage of the tech tools you have available to you - they’re there for a reason, and they really work.
If alarms aren’t your thing, maybe you could just start with writing something down. Even if you lose the paper you wrote the reminder on later on, the simple act of jotting down a note can be instrumental in helping you to remember something later on.
Just make sure you don't put too much on a to-do list. If you have thirty items on your list, you’re bound to forget some of them even though they’re on the list. Plus, you’ll feel bad about yourself when you don’t get everything checked off.
Instead, just put the five most important things on the list and revisit your to-do list once those five things are done. You can also create a tiered list that has a central list for all things you need to do, both short-term and long-term.
This to-do list can be completed in either a low-tech or high-tech way, depending on your preferences. You can make a high-tech list by using a planning app on your phone or a virtual calendar - or a physical to-do list or a wall calendar if you’d rather write things out by hand. Old school!
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Make a Habit Out Of Using Your Reusable Gear
The key to being successful with anything in life is repetition. Practice makes perfect, right?
The same goes for remembering things that you don’t want to forget - like bringing your reusables with you.
Give yourself verbal reminders out loud when you have something that you need to remember to bring with you, like your reusable water bottle or lunch bag. By telling yourself out loud that you need to remember your water bottle, and doing it multiple times in a row, it will help the memory stick better in your brain.
Do your best to set the groundwork for tasks you’ll have to remember before you need to actually remember them. After all, there’s nothing worse than remembering that you needed to take meat out to thaw for dinner than when you’re already at work. Lay the groundwork for remembering things as part of your routine - that way, you won’t have to worry about it later on.
Stay On Track and Keep Remembering All Your Favorite Reusable Gear
With all of the reusable gear and water bottles that are available for purchase these days, it can be easy to forget your own stuff. If you find yourself constantly forgetting items at home or in the office, try using a different color bag every day so that you know which one is yours.
Of course, the tips above should help you stay on track when it comes to remembering all your favorite reusable gear, too. Once you get into the habit of schlepping along with your favorite reusable water bottle, coffee mug, tote bag, or other eco-friendly items, it will be second nature.
So choose one of the tips above to give it a try and get started today. Remember, every monumental change takes that one first small step. Make today the day you take that baby step!
Jessica Lauren is Founder, contributing Author and Owner of Citrus Sleep. Citrus Sleep is an online publication that highlights brands, sleep products, women’s fashion, subscription services and ideas creating positive social change and promoting a healthy lifestyle. After spending nearly a decade working in PR and marketing for several brands and startups, Jessica knows what truly drives conversions, sold-out launches and guest posts.
Follow Jessica at @jessicalaurencs | Jessica Lauren
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