If you are ambidextrous, feel smug and ignore this.
Keep your keys, wallet, or whatever opens doors, in your weak-side pocket.
This is a bit counterintuitive. I used to keep them in my strong-side pocket for years. It’s natural to use your strong hand to unlock a door or buy a sandwich. But it causes problems when you need to open a door while carrying something awkward/heavy (say groceries, a cat, etc).
You should be carrying awkward things with your strong hand. It’s safer and easier. But when your strong-hand is full, it’s hard to get keys from your strong-side pocket. Meanwhile, keys in your weak-side pocket are still easy to employ.
I’m not especially dexterous, but in my experience, using my weak hand to unlock something hasn’t been a problem. I expected it to be harder, but honestly it hasn’t been perceptibly more difficult. Keeping keys in my weak-side pocket has been nothing but good.
Mobile-phones, pocketknives, cameras, PDAs, etc. should be in your strong-side pocket.
You should be using your strong-hand when you use them, but more importantly you (generally) don’t need to use them while carrying something. Cutting stuff while carrying a bag of groceries is a bad idea, for example.But, anything you need to use while your strong hand is full should still live on your weak side with your keys. Phones make handy flashlights, for example.
Hold drinks with your weak hand.
I’ve been trying to train myself to do this for years, and I haven’t been able to.
The theory is that your weak hand is plenty up to the task of bringing a glass to your mouth (if it isn’t, you shouldn’t be drinking!), and it’s useful to have your strong hand free. Plus holding a cold drink makes your hand cold and wet, which surprisingly isn’t cool when you need to shake with that hand. So holding drinks in your left hand = a better first impression.
Interesting idea, but one problem is that I can’t start my car with my weak hand and I start my car more often than I carry heavy stuff.
Comment by cwbowron — December 27, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
You know, the inefficiency of starting a car didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it. And I’ve been carrying my keys on my weak side for almost exactly 4 years now.
My car’s in the shop right now, so I can’t see how I put the keys in the ignition. But I can say that it’s never bothered me enough to notice.
Maybe our cars are laid out slightly differently? Maybe it’s a “death by a million paper cuts” situation where I’m wasting more time switching hands twice a day without noticing vs sometimes fumbling with bags. But I’d still take an imperceptible slowdown every day over dropping things twice a year.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an hard data to settle this. But subjectively I’ve been happy enough carrying my keys on my weak side to recommend that people give it a try. *shrug*
Comment by Vincent Gable — December 28, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
I’ve been doing this since I started carrying things like wallet & keys, just because I’ve been carrying my knife on my dominant side even longer. On those rare occasions when things get jumbled up, I find it incredibly difficult to use either knife or wallet, but keys are fine in either hand… I have no idea why.
Keeping your wallet on your off-side helps with actually using the thing, too. When you get it out, it’s easiest to keep it in the hand which retrieved it, and just try to imagine dealing with cards, cash, and all manner of other possible wallet contents using your off hand. I usually enter PINs before putting my wallet away, too, which I find difficult with my off hand unless I can get my thumb into play.
As for drinking, I can go either way. Years of using taps from the wrong side when I can’t be bothered to walk around the kitchen bench have trained me into near-complete drinking ambidexterity, though I notice that I still tip my glass differently: my dominant side tips with the wrist & fingers, while my off side tips with the shoulder.
Comment by SirPavlova — June 2, 2009 @ 8:35 am
I tried paying attention to how I drink just now, and noticed the same difference in glass-tipping. Weird! (Sadly, I’ve still made no progress on holding drinks with my off hand).
SirPavlova, you make a good point about the hand holding the wallet not being useable for more important stuff. I hadn’t thought of that before.
I carry sort of a slim wallet/money clip, and it lets me slide-out 2 of my cards (the ones on the top or bottom) without opening it or taking it out of my pocket. Probably a majority of the time I use my wallet, it’s to just to get out my ID or credit card. So I don’t often need to hold my wallet in the other hand, until I need to put a card back into it.
Comment by Vincent Gable — June 2, 2009 @ 1:25 pm