Episode 4 — Two packs in the drawer. The hardest habit to break

Saturday morning, half ten. I've already got my coat on, keys in my hand, one foot out the door.

And there's one line going round my head. I've run out of Zoverax, I'm off to the chemists.

And that's when Thomas, over the top of his coffee mug, says ever so casually,

Have you checked the app? Are you sure you haven't got any?

And I go, a bit tetchy, I'll admit.

Well, of course I know I haven't. That's why I'm going.

I got my phone out, more to prove I was right than to actually check.

Typed in the name, and the app shows me two packs.

Two, sitting in the bathroom drawer, bought, unopened.

Hello, I'm Thomas Schuster, and I built the Moyab-Tetchka app.

And yes, this actually happened.

This very Saturday, in our house.

The worst part is, I'd have sworn I didn't have any.

I was a hundred percent certain.

And that's the interesting bit.

Because you weren't lying.

You genuinely were certain.

I stood there with my phone,

staring at those two entries like someone had planted them on me.

When I'd put them there myself.

And that's exactly what this episode's about.

Because you know what actually let you down here?

Not your memory.

And not the app.

What then?

The habit.

That old, drilled-in reflex.

I need a medicine, so I go to the chemists.

Full stop.

That reflex runs on autopilot.

And it skips right past everything you already know you've got at home.

All right, but I've always done it that way.

Thirty years.

Something runs out, I go and buy it.

It's just quick.

Quick.

And sometimes completely unnecessary.

Because in that one move, you paid twice for something that's already in the drawer.

Sitting there, twice over.

Three times over it'd have been.

Because if I got in the car, I'd have bought a third.

A third.

And that's the crux of it.

The hardest thing about using a digital medicine cabinet isn't learning the app.

The app's dead simple.

The hardest thing is changing one tiny habit.

Check first, then buy.

That sounds simple.

And it really isn't.

Because you're up against thirty years of reflex.

It's like seatbelts.

Nobody used to put them on.

Now you do it without thinking.

A habit can be reset.

You've just got to catch that one moment.

But you know what's sneaky about it?

In that moment, I honestly felt it'd be quicker to buy than to check.

That's exactly the trap.

Your brain pipes up.

Checking will take time, and I'm in a hurry.

And the truth is the opposite.

Checking is ten seconds.

The top is sometimes half an hour.

And there's another thing.

I just trust what I can see in the cupboard more than what the phone tells me.

And that bit I do understand.

But think about it.

The cupboard lies too.

You're looking at one shelf, and the Zovorax was in the bathroom.

Your head says, haven't got any, because you can't see it.

The phone says, you've got two, because someone entered it once.

So it isn't really a question of who to trust.

It's that I never stopped to look in the first place.

Exactly.

Autopilot doesn't ask.

It just drives you to the chemists.

Okay.

But tell me exactly what this old habit costs me.

Because you paid twice sounds like a small thing.

One medicine, a couple of quid.

Let's break it into three.

The first is obvious.

Money.

You pay for something you already have.

Once, twice, sometimes three times.

A single pack isn't a fortune.

But multiply it by every medicine that gets bought, just in case.

Because nobody knows what's actually in stock.

Second thing?

Time.

That day it happened to be a Saturday morning.

Chemists round the corner open.

But picture the same thing on a Sunday night.

Or in the middle of the night.

Oh, that one I know.

You're driving halfway across town because the three nearest chemists are shut.

Exactly.

You already know how few are genuinely open at night or on a Sunday.

Surprisingly few.

And now, layer on top of that, the thought that the whole mad dash is for a medicine that was sitting quietly in the drawer.

That stings more than the money.

And the third thing is the least visible.

The environment.

That duplicate you never use just sits there, waiting.

Its expiry date comes and goes.

And in the end, it ends up as waste.

And you throw it out.

Except you don't just chuck a medicine in the bin or down the sink.

You're meant to take it back to the pharmacy to be disposed of properly.

And you know why that matters?

Because traces of the substances from medicines flushed away or binned with the rubbish turn up later in the groundwater.

So, fewer duplicates means less to hand back?

That's exactly how it joins up.

Less buying blind means fewer out-of-date medicines.

Fewer out-of-date medicines means fewer things to throw away.

One small decision in the doorway and it drags your wallet, your time and the environment along with it.

You know, I never thought of buying too much of a medicine as an environmental problem.

To me, it was always a clutter problem.

A mess in the cupboard.

Because that's how we see it.

As clutter.

But it's a whole chain.

First, the making of a medicine you didn't need.

Then the packaging.

Then the transport.

And at the end, the disposal, which somebody has to carry out.

And someone paid for all of it.

Either me or the environment.

Usually both.

That's why I say it's not a small thing.

It's one small habit, but it sits right at the very start of that chain.

Stop it in the doorway and none of the rest even gets going.

By the way, everything you're talking about here,

these are real features in the Moya Pdejka app, yes?

This isn't an advert.

I'm asking to be clear.

Yes, these are things the app genuinely does.

I say it plainly, to keep it honest.

I'm not selling you magic.

Just a list and a few reminders.

Good.

Because now I'll be the stubborn one.

Because I really would rather have a look in the cupboard with my own eyes

than trust the phone.

How do I know the app isn't getting it wrong?

Fair question.

And here's the important line.

The app doesn't guess anything and it doesn't prescribe anything.

It won't tell you whether to take a medicine or what it's for.

It does one simple thing.

It shows you what you told it you had in the house.

So I have to put it in first?

Yes.

You scan the pack or add it by hand.

And then, when you're standing in the doorway, you type the name and you see

Got it?

Haven't got it?

How many?

Those two Zover axes were two entries that you had added earlier.

The app didn't invent a thing.

It just showed them to you when you asked.

And if I hadn't checked and had gone off to buy that third pack?

That's the second layer and this bit I do like.

The moment you add a new pack by scanning the barcode, the app checks whether that same barcode

is already on your list.

And if it is, it flags that you've already got it.

So it catches me even after the fact.

It gives you a second chance.

It helps once before you buy, with the search by name, and once after, by the barcode, as you're adding the pack.

Even if the old habit wins, you've still got a moment to think again.

And those expiry dates you mentioned?

That's the third thing.

The app reminds you before a medicine goes out of date.

So you don't only find out about the duplicate once it's nothing but waste to hand back.

Okay, that does sound honest.

The app doesn't pretend it knows better than me.

It just keeps a list and gives you a nudge.

And that's plenty.

All the rest is ten seconds.

Before you head out for a medicine, have a quick look to see whether you've already got it.

Tell me one more thing then.

How did we end up with two packs in the first place?

Because I don't think I bought both.

One you, one me.

About a month apart, I think.

Each of us was dead certain there was none in the house.

So each of us bought more.

And nobody checked.

Because nobody had anywhere to check.

And that's the argument for a shared cabinet in the family.

Not to keep tabs on each other, but so that...

So that we see the same thing.

When we're both looking at the same list, you don't buy what I bought yesterday.

A family cabinet isn't surveillance.

It's one shared view instead of two separate guesses.

So now I've just got to reset that reflex.

We all have.

And that's the hardest part.

Not the technology.

Just that one second of stopping.

Old habit.

Hand to the keys.

New habit.

Hand to the phone.

Ten seconds.

And only then the keys.

Ten seconds versus a drive halfway across town for something I've got in the bathroom anyway.

Once you've set it in that order, you're amazed you ever did it the other way.

And it's not just about that one Zovorax, is it?

No.

Think about vitamins.

Painkillers.

Everything you buy to stock up, since I'm at the chemist's anyway.

There's more of that in the house than anything.

And it's what gets doubled up most often.

And goes out of date most often.

Because you buy a third pack of magnesium, and the first two are lurking somewhere at the back of the cupboard.

And so it comes full circle.

That's why this one habit, check first, works not on one medicine, but on the whole cabinet at once.

So where do people find the app?

That'd be the Moya Potechka app.

The app is free and works offline.

You'll find the link in the episode description.

And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who's got a drawer full of medicines at home,

and hasn't the foggiest what's actually in there.

One more thing before we go.

This podcast is made with the help of artificial intelligence.

I wrote the dialogue myself, but the voices you're hearing aren't ours.

They're AI-generated synthetic voices.

We're telling you this straight out because we think it should be the standard for any podcast made this way.

Full details are in the show notes and in every episode description.

And from today, it's phone first, then keys.

Phone first, then keys.

Until next time.

Until next time.