Comments on: Home-made instant poka-yokes

By: Détrompeurs : la suite

Détrompeurs : la suite — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:45:30 +0000

[...] retrouvons aussi de bons exemples sur le blog Design with intent [...]

By: Ali

Ali — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:48:42 +0000

My variant of that is to leave a yellow sticky on their computer keyboard. Works great, except with those people who already put yellow stickies on their keyboards for other reasons.

By: Design with Intent | Errorproofing Lens: The Patterns

Design with Intent | Errorproofing Lens: The Patterns — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:22:27 +0000

[...] to slow a process down or prevent accidental errors – another forcing function. Most everyday poka-yokes (”useful landmines”) are examples of this [...]

By: emily

emily — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:27:52 +0000

my old apartment manager charged me $40 to come unlock my apartment if i locked myself out, so after paying that twice i became an obsessive key-checker. my new apartment is a poka-yoke disguised as a building [or firetrap depending on your point of view]… the door out of my apartment has a toggle-lock on the inside, a key hole on the outside, but the door from the vestibule outside opens with keys on both sides. if i unlock my apartment door from the inside via the toggle, i can’t physically leave the building without my keys, and i can’t have locked my apartment door behind me without my keys. it’s physically impossible to forget my keys in my apartment. i’m no longer a compulsive key-checker, but now i just have to worry about finding my keys in the middle of the night in a fire… [don't worry, i have separated the keys to the other two doors out of my apartment and have them in other locations just in case]

By: Acuario 27 » Blog Archive » Poka Yoke II

Acuario 27 » Blog Archive » Poka Yoke II — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:49:51 +0000

[...] Encontré esta página que recomienda que habla de diseño, e dentro de ésta un post acerca de como hacer Poka Yokes caseros instantáneos, como el que ilustra este post se puede ver algunos más aquí [...]

By: How to enjoy taking notes and revising things

How to enjoy taking notes and revising things — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:03:41 +0000

[...] (on the face of it) nightmare morass of notes, because I had to: they were useless otherwise (yes, a useful landmine strategy). And that act, of sorting out the hundreds of pages into coherent taxonomies, subjects and themes, [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:44:14 +0000

I used to have a problem with getting up really late, and this post gave me some inspiration – I live in shared accommodation, so I have taken to setting two alarms; one to wake me up, and another in our shared kitchen set for ten minutes later. I have to get up in order to prevent the alarm from waking everyone else up. To date I haven’t missed one alarm Thanks, design with intent :p

By: officedrone

officedrone — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:53:27 +0000

I worked in an office where it was common practice to put papers on someone’s chair so they would know the papers had been dropped off while they were away. At my next job, I left some papers on someone’s chair my first week in the job. I stopped by a little later to check on them. “What papers?” the woman asked. I told her I’d left them on her chair. She stood up. There they were, and she was not very happy about it. Not everyone looks at their chair before sitting in it. I stopped leaving papers on chairs. I do sometimes leave them on top of keyboards.

By: Poka Yoke « Going Back to Cyberspace

Poka Yoke « Going Back to Cyberspace — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:30:50 +0000

[...] Poka Yoke February 29, 2008 We all definitely need this in our lives. Poka yoke is the Japanese term meaning “error avoidance,” or in more colloquial terms mistake-proofing. A good example is to put your cellphone or your keys in your shoes to ensure that you don’t forget them on your way out the door. [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:44:47 +0000

Look for 3M’s Super Sticky Post-It Notes (TM and R, I’m sure). They solve the problem of notes falling off the walls and onto the floor.

By: Ray Williamson

Ray Williamson — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:26:08 +0000

This may not work as well for those who carry handbags (but I keep my car keys in my pants pocket.) If I need to remember a bunch of things before I leave the current location, I just write them ALL on a scrap of paper and put it in the same pocket. Keys are heavier than paper, so I can’t ignore the paper when I reach for the keys. It’s a whole lot neater than stacking items, and more fool-proof than putting the keys with them, then wondering where the keys are.

By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:18:47 +0000

It’s been a rainy, but not as cold as usual, winter here in NYC. Thus, I have needed to carry an umbrella, as well as wear a hat and gloves. Having left an umbrella at work a couple of times, I started putting one of my gloves or my hat on the umbrella handle, instead of in my bag. And, every time since then, I always first think, where are my gloves or hat, and when I do, I discover my umbrella!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:43:30 +0000

Packing for that camping trip? Stopping by at a friends with some cold groceries? Taking wine to a dinner out? Put your car keys in the fridge with the items you don’t want to forget, and you’ll make sure you don’t leave without them!

By: Royce

Royce — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:29:06 +0000

This one is not as foolproof as many, but it has nonetheless become one of the most useful to me. Often, I notice that I need gas while I’m in the middle of an uninterruptible errand or task. I usually have a water bottle around, so leaving one on my dash is my personal universal signal that I need to refill the gas the next time I’m in the car.

By: Frank Booth

Frank Booth — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:23:54 +0000

I consider papers left on my chair to be an act of passive aggression and always move them to the bottom of my work pile.

Direct communication with me as to the nature of the papers and your need for me to expedite them is what is expected. Failing direct communication, a short voice mail will suffice.

By: Mayo

Mayo — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:36:05 +0000

If I have piles of paper on my desk that need sorting, but I don’t have time right now/am feeling lazy/have to do something else first, I’ll often put them on my bed – then at the very latest when I want to go to sleep I am forced to do something with them. Sometimes, they’ll end up back on my desk (to repeat the game the next day), but often it’ll force me to sort them out there and then.

By: Magnetbox - links for 2008-02-13

Magnetbox - links for 2008-02-13 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:18:50 +0000

[...] Home-made instant poka-yokes (tags: design) [...]

By: harriscampbell

harriscampbell — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:11:45 +0000

If anything needs to go back into the car (like empty grocery bags or street directory), then it gets put on the floor in front of the door so that I actually have to pick them up to go out the door.

Similarly, anything that has to be actioned outside of the house (mail etc) gets put on the floor in front of the door.

I’ve also found that as PostIt notes often fall onto the floor (very common in humid parts of the world), I put the notes on the floor in the first place. The best place is in the doorway of a room you have to go to as part of the chore/task.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:42:56 +0000

Thanks everyone – these are some great ideas. As Elaine points out, ways to avoid forgetting keys (especially car keys) seem particularly well-represented here, but as the necessity for driving away, the keys or key-ring can also be a great ‘anchor’ for attaching other objects you don’t want to forget. It’s an interesting point.

Thanks too to Pantufla for referring us to the Useful Landmines concept on 43Folders, which is indeed the same kind of idea expressed more elegantly, perhaps (the term poka-yoke comes from Shigeo Shingo, the Japanese manufacturing expert, and is usually applied in an engineering context rather than in everyday life). Some of the example useful landmines are simple reminders, but Merlin Mann also links to this article by Stephanie Burns which explores a number of more involved strategies, tending towards actually training oneself into a different way of behaving (‘installing new habits’), e.g.:

You want to start carrying a bit of cash and not using your credit card.

Make it hard to do. Freeze your credit card in a block of ice.

You want to walk or jog each morning to start your day, but by the time you get up and move around you don’t feel like it.

Make it easier to do. Sleep in your jogging clothes, socks included, shoes optional.

You want to stop biting your nails, but don’t remember that ’til you’re doing it.

Make it hard or uncomfortable to do. Coat your nails with bitters, put bandaids over the ends, put a sugar free lollypop in your mouth.

You want the habit of waking up 20 minutes earlier but keep pushing the alarm snooze.

Make it hard to stay in bed. Move the alarm, set the lights on a timer, set the TV on a timer.

…

You want to fold the clothes, but they sit in the laundry out of sight until you walk in there next time.

Make it easy to remember and hard to not do. Take the laundry and put it on the dining table, the lounge, in the bathroom sink.

…

You want to move more, your annoyed at your inactivity.

Make it easier to do. Take your TV remote to work and leave it there.

A mark of a good idea is often that it arises independently in many places, under many different names. The wealth of ideas in the comments – elicited by a single blog post and a link from Good Experience (thanks, Mark) – shows just how able we are at coming up with ways to ‘fix’ our own mistakes/oversights/forgetfulness/behaviour in general.

Keep the comments coming!

By: Tara

Tara — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:56:19 +0000

When wet, I hang my umbrella on the door handle at home or on the light knob in my studio. Either way, the umbrella gets to dry out and I always remember to put the dry umbrella back in my bag on leaving.