Pick up where you left off.
This is really where the idea for Keeper's Cabinet came together for me.
I don't need another program that gives me another place to put information. I need something that helps me actually get the thing done. Something that keeps the workflow moving, gives me a track to follow, and keeps the story of that item together along the way.
Because every piece has a story.
Where did I find it? What did I pay for it? Was it part of a giant box I dragged home from an estate sale? What did I learn about it when I started researching it? Where did I list it? How long did it sit there waiting for the right person to come along?
I want the Cabinet to follow that story from the day something comes home with me until the day it goes home with someone else.
So that's how I'm building it.
Everything has a place to be and one job to do while it's there. An item doesn't just disappear into the abyss somewhere and hope for the best. It moves through one step at a time, and it doesn't move on until that step is done.
Because I know how this goes.
I can sit down completely determined that today I am going to photograph inventory.
Then I find something I forgot about.
Which reminds me of something else.
I look that up.
Somewhere in there I decide I should probably reorganize a drawer.
And two hours later I'm holding a necklace, have 14 browser tabs open, and have absolutely no idea what I was doing before any of this started.
Keeper's Cabinet can't stop me from wandering off.
I'm not sure anything can at this point.
What it can do is remember where I was.
When I come back tomorrow, three days from now, or two weeks later, the item is still sitting right where I left it, waiting for me to finish that step. Once I do, it moves on to the next place and the next job.
Nothing gets skipped because I got distracted. Nothing gets moved along just because I thought I finished it. And I don't have to keep the entire process tucked away somewhere in my head; or on that piece of paper I threw away two days later.
I just have to open the Cabinet and pick up where I left off.
