I just end up buying enough of the item to be within arms reach of nearly anywhere I'm likely to use it.
I used to never be able to find a screwdriver when I needed it, so now I have seven screwdrivers: three regular ratcheting, three stubby ratcheting, and a ratcheting one that lives in my pocket. I keep a regular ratcheting on my desk, in my living room, and in my bedroom, which are the only places I would realistically ever use these things.
As a result there's really no reason for me to lose it; it's already contained into the area that it already lives.
I do this with a lot of stuff now. Separate chargers for my laptop for my desk and my bed, separate iPhone chargers, and a bunch of other stuff.
I applied this rule to tape measures, because I found I never had one when I needed one, e.g., out in the car. So my new rule became: if you can't easily find a tape measure when you need one, buy another one at your earliest convenience.
Now I have one in my work bag, at least one in the car, one in my main toolbox, a few hiding around other places in the garage, one in the kitchen, probably one upstairs, on in my desk drawer, etc.
I did the same thing when Dollar Tree started stocking tape measures for $1.25. I figured that they’ll be accurate enough and I do need to measure stuff a lot, so I have ended up buying four.
I also have a keychain one that lives on my house keys, which has come in handy a few times (even if it is limited to 6 feet).
I applied this rule to microfibre cloth for my glasses. I bulk buy 100 of these online and place one each in every jacket I have, plus a few more around drawers at my home
I have to fight against my hoarding tendencies, but I figure that for small stuff, the likelihood of getting so much that it's a problem is unlikely. Even if I had 100 screwdrivers and 100 tape measures, that would be a bit odd, but it's not enough for a reality show to make an episode about me.
The stuff you have there is all pretty small and not terribly expensive, so I don't think it's very hoard-ey.
I did have to get rid of a lot of my computer equipment that I was hoarding...rack mount servers are sort of addictive because they're inexpensive and powerful, so I had a bunch of them taking up way too much room in my basement. I've given all of them away to friends and coworkers and replaced them with a few tiny gaming PCs.
that diagonal cutter seems a strange choice to me. Care to say more on why that particular item? You already have a pair of scisors and a cutter in there...
In my EDC case / kit(s) I tend to add a pair of grippy pliers instead of cutting pliers - think Knipex Cobra or the Knipex parallel pliers for grabbing / tightening stuff.
A decade ago, I bought a bucket of 25 nail clippers. My wife was initially skeptical, but over the next few years, grew to appreciate the low demands of the system: Need a nail clipper? Go to the bucket. See a nail clipper in a weird place? Put it in the bucket, if you feel like it and have the time. Otherwise, don't worry about it. There'll be one in the bucket when you need it.
I always lost my guitar picks while in school and going through my guitar phase. Eventually I bought a whole box of them and scattered them throughout my room. Less than a week later I couldn't find any. Some items, like guitar picks and bobby pins are just cursed out the factory it seems.
eh... my car before that, a 90s Japanese car, had plain old dumb keys. It was stolen twice (and found abandoned twice) by joy riders who easily stole it.
Yeah I mentioned in a sibling comment that there are things that are too expensive to have a bunch of, so you can’t do it for everything, just relatively cheap “I can never seem to find X when I need it…” stuff.
You can't do it with everything but, for example, I tend to have a stocked travel kit that I don't need to raid (for the most part) for everyday charging gear. My laptops live where they live and I'll bring their chargers with them; they basically don't move unless I'm traveling. My office has some tools and my garage has some tools. I may need to raid one or the other but not for routine stuff.
I certainly don't need to bring a downstairs charger upstairs to charge my iPhone at night.
Yep, I keep a laptop USB-C charger in my backpack, so I don’t have to unplug things and move things.
As you said, you can’t do this for everything; some things are too expensive or take too much room to have a million duplicates of, but I don’t feel like I lose those things as much.
The things I feel like I loose are generally relatively inexpensive, like pens or scissors or screwdrivers. I got lasik so I don’t need them anymore, but i used to have 10 of the $7.95 pairs of glasses spread out everywhere as well, in case I lost a contact lens at work or something.
Aliexpress is kind of a godsend for me. A lot of tools on there in particular are shockingly good.
USB-C has been a game changer for charging. I'm now able to keep a charger that will work for almost everything I own everywhere I might need one. One at my desk, one in my bag, one by the TV, one by the bed. Next step is strapping a set of adapters to each of those cables.
USB-C is the best. When I had to trade my Intel MacBook pro back into IT for a new M1 with a MagSafe connector, I told them I wanted to keep the USB-C charger. I didn't want another damn charger to carry around with me. They thought it was super weird that I would prefer USB-C, but it charges everything I carry with me.
Also I replaced a few receptacles in my house with ones that have USB-C ports on them. Then I never have to worry about them walking off...
I used to never be able to find a screwdriver when I needed it, so now I have seven screwdrivers: three regular ratcheting, three stubby ratcheting, and a ratcheting one that lives in my pocket. I keep a regular ratcheting on my desk, in my living room, and in my bedroom, which are the only places I would realistically ever use these things.
As a result there's really no reason for me to lose it; it's already contained into the area that it already lives.
I do this with a lot of stuff now. Separate chargers for my laptop for my desk and my bed, separate iPhone chargers, and a bunch of other stuff.