How Do You Handle Your Keys?

arisvega writes "I lost my backpack some time ago, but was lucky enough to have left my laptop at home that night, and my cell and keys in my pocket. The inevitable habit-change that followed was to start strapping my keys on my pants, so at least I would still be able to get home (as long as I kept my pants on). But I realized I had a lot of keys: one for the outer door, two for the inner, three more for my girlfriend's place, one for the office, one for the postbox, one for my bicycle, the car, the motorbike and the roof. ... Plus, I keep a tiny Swiss Army knife on my keychain that I really wouldn't want to part with. Needless to say, this makes a jingly bunch that eats through my pocket. I ask you, Slashdot people, how do you carry/safeguard a hefty, pronouncedly jingly bunch of keys? What are the alternatives? Any suggestions on clothing or technology? Would having 'The One Key' make things better, or worse?"

News for nerds.

[FF8Jake]

Stuff that matters.

Prioritize and partition

[Dragoniz3r]

Put your "disposable" keys like the key to your bike, mailbox, the roof, and your gf's place on one key ring and keep it in your backpack, while keeping just your "essential" keys like car and front door strapped to your pants.

Re:saves time and money!

[Tobenisstinky]

Exactly; our home uses the same key for all the doors. Also separate key rings based on activity. eg. I don't need my bicycle key when I use my vehicle.

Inept Failures

[sexconker]

Is slashdot so full of socially and practically inept failures that we need to discuss how to hold keys?

You put keys on a keyring.
If you have a lot of keys, you have separate keyrings. [My Keys], [Work Keys]. Have even more? [My Keys], [Work Keys], [My Keys I Don't Use Much].

Keyrings stay in your front pocket.
Keyrings should not be attached to backpacks, belt loops, or anything else that results in them being exposed or visible.

Carry [My Keys] with you all the time.
Carry [Work Keys] when going to work. Need to always have access? Keep duplicates in a place secured by [My Keys], such as your car. Carry [My Keys I Don't Use Much] only when necessary.

Worried about losing keys? That's what locksmiths are for. In fact, there's a wide range of real-world crafts and services that can solve just about every problem you, the anxious, paranoid, hypochondriac nerd can dream up.

You do not want a skeleton key.
You do not want something digital to replace your keys.
You do not need technology to solve this non-problem.

Re:saves time and money!

[beelsebob]

Alternatively, stop carrying around pointless keys. Don't carry around the key to the roof of your house for example, leave it in your house. Taking your car? Leave your bike keys at home and vice-versa...

I would have thought this was pretty obvious.

Talk about intelligent people and lack of common sense >.

linux, of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I run Linux on all of my locks and use a smart card reader to read my single key.

The best part is, I can ssh into my lock and see how often it has been used. If I ever lose my key, I just use a remote ssh exploit to crack my lock.

I had a power outage, once. But power backups saved the day. A simple hydrogen fuel cell located in each door will keep things running for decades!

Re:News for nerds.

[marky_boi]

sound like a question for a social network..not relevant here

Re:One suggestion

[AkiraRoberts]

Because then when your car is stolen, you can be super fucked. Why not up the ante, and use your car as a giant filing cabinet for all your important documents as well?

Re:Prioritize and partition

[HBoar]

Bu don't EVER let the GF know that her keys (and hence, in her mind, herself) have been deemed to be disposable.

Which is the scarier thought?

[mschuyler]

The fact that this story is not in idle, or the fact that it has so many "serious" replies?

Next up: An in-depth analysis of what brand of adhesive tape is best to mend your glasses.

Re:saves time and money!

[FrozenGeek]

A key ring with house keys and bike key. Another key ring with house keys and car keys.

Re:I keep mine in my coat..

[s0litaire]

I'm in Scotland...

Summer lasts only 4 hours a year....

Re:reduce key count

[CorporateSuit]

I'm married, and this situation never came up where I needed to get into a girlfriend's house without her being there. I can understand an occassional "Oops, could you run to my house and pick something up for me? I'm at work and I need it, and you're inexplicably at your house watching TV during a work day!" but that's an exception to the rule. I didn't give her the keys to my apartment and she didn't give me the keys to her apartment because we weren't retarded. It is also why I never had to change my locks when I broke up with someone.

It's NOT normal to have the keys to someone else's house unless you're just trying to show off that you HAVE the keys to their house -- it's an amateur move made by attention whores.

Re:News for nerds.

[Sturm]

The only thing worse than wankers who make useless, inane comments like this are the wankers who moderate this sort of tripe as "Insightful".

Re:News for nerds.

[digitalsushi]

I'd rather read about other people's processes than anything else. If you find key management as trite then perhaps you don't understand what being a nerd entails.

Coin Pocket

[RJBeery]

I shove my car remote in the right front coin pocket of my jeans, and let the rest of the keys dangle. That way the keys don't poke my leg or eat through my pocket liner. They do jingle, but it's not unbearable, and I've noticed that if/when I enter a quiet room I'll grab the keys with my hand or just carry them. The need for silent walking is rarer than you might think.

Re:News for nerds.

[AmaDaden]

You have a point but I find an article like this to be more then reasonable to be called "news for nerds". Geeks have a nice mix of OCD and creativity that result in useful and interesting ideas on a topic like this. This same question asked in another community would result in useless uncreative comments that I expect to all be along the lines of questioning what the big problem is if you lose your keys sometimes and why do you need so many keys anyway.

Now that I think about it, a good idea may be to make a new section for 'life hacking' topics like this.

Just three

[Ixitar]

House, car and office. They fit easily in my pocket.

Re:News for nerds.

[snowraver1]

The solution here is to simply carry less keys.

one for the outer door, two for the inner, three for girlfriends place, one for the office, one for the postbox, one for my bicycle, the car, the motorbike and the roof

Motorbike key stays at home keeping the roof key company. Unless you use your bicycle every day, take that off too. Assuming you live in an apartment and the outer door is a communal one, keep that one and one of you inner door ones. Leave the other lock unlocked. Locks are for honest people anyways. Ditch either the girlfriend or her keys. They are weighing you down too much. Get her to buzz you in. Why carry they keys? With that you are down to 5 keys. Buy a $2 keyring (don't get any extra crap, just a ring) and ta-da key problem solved.

Tune in tomorrow to learn how to clean your room.

Carabiner. Belt Loop. Several keyrings.

[Kris_J]

I have my keys on a Carabiner. The core set stay there all the time, other groups (like car keys) or tools (like a little USB Swiss army knife) get clipped on and off as needed. The set then gets clipped on the belt loop nearest my pocket and slipped into the top of the pocket. The weight never pulls on the pocket itself.

Re:reduce key count

[tverbeek]

If your relationship ends so badly that you have to change the locks when you break up (rather than simply asking for the key back and getting it), then it was a mistake giving him/her the key in the first place.

Is this guy an adult???

[syousef]

move in with your girlfriend, that will save you 3 keys right there

If he's asking a question like this on slashdot, I don't think he's ready for that. I don't know about you, but I was made responsible for a set of keys to the house sometime around the age of 7 or 8. I'm surprised he's not asking slashdot about toilet habits "What happens when you want to go poopies?"

Re:Ring a locksmith...

[Dun Malg]

It's been suggested that it's "less secure"

I am a locksmith, and I have one key that fits my house.... and my mother's house... and my brother's house... and my father's house... and two of my friends' houses. Security is simply a matter of key control. There seems to be a common delusion that having more locks is more secure. Really, if someone is going to break into your house, they're going to break in to your house. People who steal using keys are nearly always people who have been given the key by the occupant. Having a bunch of different keys won't solve that.

For work I have my work key ring in the truck, and that gets me into the lock shop. For home all I have is a ring with my house key, my HID prox fob,and my truck key (which also fits my other car--- a benefit of being a locksmith).

...and if you think you have a lot of keys to deal with, you should see what *I* have to deal with. I have them by the thousands, and it's a constant struggle to keep them organized.

Two strategies

[Desert Raven]

First, get rid of some keys. Many houses have exterior doors with both a lock on the knob and a deadlock. I've replaced all of the knobs with keyless versions. #1, the knob lock is pointless if you use the deadbolt. #2, if the only lock is a deadbolt, you *cannot* lock yourself out.

Second, split to multiple rings. There's no reason for me to carry my motorcycle keys when I'm driving my car. I have separate rings for each vehicle, with a house key on each. The rings are kept in a keybox, and I only take the one I need. I then have a separate ring with miscellaneous keys, but it mostly stays in the keybox.

I mean, seriously, why are you carrying around your *roof* key?

Re:Heh? Mountain climbing clip?

[RMH101]

No, OP is correct. SPecifically the S-biner has a habit of losing stuff. I used to geek out at the EDCForums (which is *the* correct place to ask this, there are entire forums devoted to this kind of thing!)
Personally I break contents down to separate keyrings down for things I might want to remove: house keys on one ring, car on another, Leatherman Squirt P4 on another, small metal container with a micro USB stick and some paracetamol on another, photon torch etc, and then clip them all onto a steel spring loaded spring clip from the local marine supply store. When I'm camping the whole lot gets lanyard-clipped to me, the rest of the time it just sits in my pocket.

Every copule of months I get the pockets of my work suit repaired...!

Use a key pouch instead of a key ring

[ArsenneLupin]

Around here, they do those handy leather pouches with a keyring inside, and which close with a zipper or buttoned flap.

While you still might need to trim down on the number of keys you carry, at least this will protect your pockets, and any mobile that may be sharing a pocket with your keys.

And some of these pouches even have an additional smaller compartment that is handy for items such as USB keys.