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Key organization

I recently moved and and now inundated with new keys. The place I've rented has two keys each for the front and back doors, as well as a mailbox key. I have a car key and two bicycle lock keys as well as a key for the locker at my gym.

I prefer to get rid of keys altogether and just use combination locks, but I don't have control over most of these locks, so it's not an option to switch for most of these.

Most of the time, I only need a subset of keys for anything I do; during the week, I only need house (I only use the back door so that also helps), bicycle and locker keys to go to work. Other times, I need the car key, but not the bike keys. I've been thinking about getting a valet key chain like this:
http://keychains4you.com/muvake.html
does anyone have experience with these? Do they work well and stand up to frequent use? Are there better solutions for this type of situation?

As a second question, does anyone have experience "shaving" the large plastic ends that so many keys (especially cars and bicycle locks) have these days? It's nice if the keys just sit together in a small, slim package, but these plastic do-hickeys force the keys to lie in a jumble. I'd really like to know what kind of tang there is and if it can be attached to something else. I don't have to many keys to experiment with that aren't a pain to replace, so I'd like to get some insight before I go down this path.

A

Lachia's picture

multiple key chains

As a grad student who has an office key, building key, lab key, experiment post (I do a lot of outside work) key, gate key, several shed keys, bike key, house key, car key, keys to both of my parent's houses and to my brother's house, mailbox key, well, you get the picture...I had to impliment the following hack to keep track of everything.

I keep my house, car, mailbox and bike keys on my main key chain. I can't get anywhere or do anything without that chain and it is always with me.

In my messenger bag, that I don't leave for school or the experiment station without I keep the second key chain (always!) to get me into any of the areas related to those two locations.

In my car I keep my relative's keys. They live in towns separate from mine so I know that I need my car in order to get to those places and then that key chain is always available to me once I reach my destination.

I also keep a separate "bar" key chain right my door. I don't carry a purse so if I go out with my friends for the evening I only need my house key and car key (if I'm even driving...usually I walk...gotta love small towns). There's no decoration on this key chain, just a ring with the two keys so it fits very neatly in my front pocket.

I had to practice a bit before I was able to figure out which keys needed to be on which key chain and where the best storage place was for each, but now that I have it down I've had no problems.
:cool:

 
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