My belongings used to enter and leave my life with the ambivalence of a kid leaving high school and passing by an army recruitment advertisement. I used to leave pretty much everything in my life in every place possible. My keys were in the fridge, my phone was in the dresser, and my wallet was occasionally in the toilet. My things were defecting, trying to leave with no respect for the ruler. Leaders need to rule with an iron fist, leaders need to have strict guidelines on what is allowed, and what isn’t, and when something violates those rules, there needs to be a system in place for getting stuff back to the way it’s supposed to be. There are systems that have worked for me that can turn a once incredibly forgetful person into a relatively normal one — so effective, yet so simple, that the tradeoffs are worth it. This is the art of war — but for your things.
Simplify your stuff. Rulers don’t have more people than they can control. A dictator who relies on too many individual people never lasts long, as a new dictator can come along and promise more power to those who are truly important to running a kingdom. In this case, instead of a rival power usurping your kingdom, they’re stealing your stuff, and you didn’t notice because your attention is fragmented across too many places. Cut down on waste. Reduce the things you need to carry with you. There seems to be a culture of having an “EDC” or “every day carry.” Do not give in to the voices. You do not need to carry separate high quality bottle openers, knives, and scissors, when a single swiss army knife will do just fine. If you want your pocket regime to go according to plan, you need to cut out the things that you do not use on a daily basis. My personal go-tos are phone, wallet, chapstick, and pen: a phone for communicating behind enemy lines, a wallet for filling the coffers with gold, a pen for signing royal decrees, and a chapstick because it is winter and it is cold. Only carry another thing if you can actually afford it.
Consistency. Strict military breakdown of roles. You must retain control of your troops in peacetime for them to respect you in war. Establish the exact function of each unit, and designate a place for it to live on your person. Having a strict hierarchy can also make decisions about simplification easier. No back pockets? No problem. Just phone and keys, because everywhere takes apple pay now anyways. Habit formation. This goes for the other strategies mentioned, but try to chain your habits together. All units should either be working to make the kingdom better, or asleep. Airpods should either be in your ears, or in the case in your pocket. In addition, they should always go in the same pocket. If you keep your stuff in the same physical place on your person, it will become obvious when you don’t have it.
Home base. Every ruler needs a kingdom, so when you return to your castle from an epic day of conquest, you should designate a living place for every item that you own. Every time you get home, the first thing you should do is put your stuff in the same place. While you are out, you don’t set your things down, they live in your pockets. It’s important to have a landing pad for everything, to prevent the classic lost-in-the-blankets problem. Establishing a home base also helped me use my phone less, because either I’m using it for a purpose, or it’s living in the same place.
No man gets left behind. When you leave your temporary station, get into the habit of looking behind you. Do a quick check under the chair. Put your hand in between the cushions on the couch. Just double-check to make sure that none of your soldiers were left on the battlefield. Each time you go to a new location you must check to see if there is anything that you have left behind. It begins as a conscious effort, but with enough practice it will become second nature.
Being a dictator isn’t easy. You need to rule with an iron fist, lest your stuff attempt an uprising, or another dictator comes along and liberates your things. If you desire the power to affect your environment around you, start with the easiest place you can control: your stuff, and where it lives. By keeping your kingdom in order, and your subjects happy, you will live a long and fruitful life as the benevolent dictator of your own pocket regime.
By: Claire M.
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