In CHARGE

So today it was better. Shower took me 7 minutes, and I didn't leave my bathroom door expect one short spell for couple of minutes. So I am doing better and I am able to see the progress.

I also did some serious thinking about CABLES AND PLUGS. I have realized by my dotty experiment that a main reason of me in some cases wasting energy is not a bad will but the forgetfulness. Why do I forget? Because plugs, cables and even the way most appliances look like designed to be invisible. It is a fact. Even if they are in a big lump like this one underneath my desk, they blend into each other and are looking exactly the same. Colour is either GRAY, WHITE, OR BLACK, they are all tangled up together and therefore no matter if together or separate are just not recognizable. I guess from a product designer point of view it is exactly what needs to happen. The product is a star, not a cable for it. The missed thing is that A CABLE AND A PRODUCT ARE THE SAME. You cannot differ them and hide one from another. Part of a new eco designed products expect of having an A grade should have on them a Standby information.

The other thing I realized that some of the appliances DO NOT HAVE SWITCH OFF BUTTON. I knew that before, but never was that strict with my energy usage as this week, and realized how unhelpful that is.

ENVIRONMENTAL OBSERVATION
1. Organizing your cables is confusing but important for the energy efficiency.
2. As a cable is just a cable it never grows to be an important task to sort out and because of that is usually left behind at the bottom of the to do list
3. Design of our appliances makes this issue invisible and not important from a visual point of view.
4. If you make it visible in any way, you are more likely to improve on energy efficiency.
5. Outdated product designs are in a way responsible for our mistakes, so it is also important to bring to public attention, that we should influence the future product designs to be more in charge of what we are getting on a shop shelves.

BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION:
1. I guess that it is relatively easy to create a new habit rather than stopping the old one.
2. Once you get some success on the way of your habit change it is easier to get the next one.
3. Some of the issues could be solved by making them more visually visible. So for example today I tested leaving my bathroom door open all the time expect the time when it was used and that made me not leave the light on.