Poka-Yokes: Silly name, useful tricks...

We're all designers, to the extent that we design our own lives: we come up with systems for ourselves, we teach ourselves habits that work, we choose the things we use and live with to create a whole, total, functional life. And it turns out there's a name for some of the things that we design for ourselves: "poka-yokes," described as methods which force our (future) selves to remember something or act in a certain way. The blog Design with Intent describes a few, some of which you may find that you already use: putting your cellphone in your shoes so you can't possibly leave home with it ("athlete's face" be damned); leaving papers for a coworker on a surface that they can't ignore, like their chair or keyboard; or, one which I myself use, leaving the battery/memory card door on a digital camera open when those items aren't in the camera. It makes life easier - more usable, some might say - when your future self doesn't have to wing it. Your past self can help!
[via Good Experience]