“Wallet, keys, spectacles, and watch.” I remember one of my older uncles distinctively because of how that worked as a mantra that he would mutter under his breath each time he was making a move to head anywhere.“
The essentials.” Was what he called them, and that he would never leave home without them.
Interestingly, no one in our family would make fun of him for it, except our younger family members. “Just imagine losing any of those. Just once,” he'd say to me, and my younger siblings and cousins, before laughing at us and telling us “You're welcome.”
I'm approaching my 30s now and do feel fortunate to be born where I had time to be weaned onto technology. To see and be part of a workforce that saw the way we conducted work and business move from analogue to digital, and to appreciate and understand the benefits and differences that came along with that shift.
And that has got me thinking, as I got older, and my version of my uncle’s mantra, the list got lesser and lesser. I’ve crossed out spectacles from my list, and watch vacated the list for a number of years, only to get replaced by “Fitbit” when I tried taking better charge of my health and fitness, feeling encouraged at how my daily commute to the train station on foot could give me a slight leeway to indulge in more wine or cake. “Fitbit” got replaced once more now to just “watch” after I got my hands on a smartwatch that offered me more functionalities, bundling in the activity tracking apps, to a sleek timepiece, which I had the foresight to remove notifications for emails after 9 at night.
All this got me thinking, that as we get more entrenched into technology, we will start phasing out more and more devices that are monofunctional, and in some cases, services get an overhaul in the name of expedience and convenience.
With the advancements in mobile technology, and our smart phones looking to be our main touch point to the world, we are spoiled for choice, to have what we want on demand, with lower prices, and greater accessibility than ever before. An article in 2015 had even discussed the possibilities where the smartphone could replace our computers, and probably be the only computer we need in 2 years, and here we are now.
This was discussed with a friend of mine over dinner recently, who just got a new job as an office secretary, when she mentioned the issue of losing her keys. Before I could lay my mantra down on her, she stopped me and gave me more details to her predicament, and her interesting workaround.
She had always enjoyed things with a bird motif, and the latest thing she had gotten her hands on was a keyholder at home that had multiple slots for keychains, which were cute little plastic birds that could be slotted into the keyholder like a “nest”.
The pink bird, she reserved for her apartment, room, and mailbox. And she had another one for her parent’s place, and the last one set aside for the multitude of keys she had for work. The main office door, the main meeting room, doors to the bosses’ offices, that all worked fine until one day, when they had an important meeting, and the clients made a comment about her keychain. Worrying about what might be perceived as having a lack of “company cohesion” and “company branding”, she was made to switch to the company branded keychain.
Problem laid in the fact that it did not fit in her bird’s nest key holder that she had made efforts to plan for and organize, and it did result in her forgetting her work keys on a few occasions. It worked her to a point of exasperation that she had shared this insightful article and video with me about how not to lose my keys.
If we have a device that can connect us to the world around us, should we not look at taking it a step further, that allows us to connect to the different places, and locations we would be needed across the busy day?
Seeing as how the mobile phone is to stay, and with advancements in keyless technology accessibility and security, that one day my mantra could just be:“Wallet, phone.”---Do check out our weekly GTRIIP blog post updates, as we explore the possibilities of keyless technology, new advancements in our workplace and share our views and insights, and opinions on a variety of topics. Leave a comment in the comments section below, and let us get a conversation going!
