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Learning this has also changed my life, but maybe not for the better. Now every time I see someone I know and their shoes are tied in a granny knot I have to waste a bunch of calories deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them.
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I encounter this all the time, I just want to help people and pass along things I’ve learned but it’s not always received well. For sure, many adults would not want to be told how to tie their shoelaces.

My only advice is to start by approaching the problem. “Hey, do your shoelaces come untied often?”

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OMG same!

It's like when you learn how to roll up headphone wires or properly clean glasses.

The temptation to do it for others (and get rejected) is way too high.

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Gonna need a description of the correct way to do these things. I have a feeling I'll be one of today's lucky 10,000.
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Wait, how do you properly clean glasses?
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Maybe this isn't proper, but, what I do is wet them, rub them with a tiny amount of dish soap, then rinse them under the hot water tap.

Then blow the droplets off both sides and let the rest air dry. We have soft water here, so no water spots. No rubbing dry with any kind of cloth.

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Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.)

Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing.

If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub with your fingers until clean. Skip to polish step.

If using cleaner, spray cleaner onto the cloth, NOT onto the lens. Spray onto one side of the cloth so that you have a wet side and a dry side.

(You can use water instead of cleaner in a pinch.)

Three passes.

First pass: with wet side, wipe lens in lines from top of frame to bottom. NOT in circles. (You'll spread the dirt around this way, making the cleaning process take way longer and potentially introducing scratches.)

Second pass: Repeat first pass with dry side of cloth.

Repeat first and second passes until lenses look mostly clear.

Third pass, if you have a polishing cloth: Wipe polishing clothes in circles until lenses are clear.

Your lenses will last forever if cleaned this way.

The cleaner steps above also work on any glass surface, like laptop screens or car windows.

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I don't know why people say this. When I wore glasses I cleaned them with my cotton shirts for over a decade and they didn't get scratched up, at all. I don't see how cotton would scratch glass to begin with.
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Usually it's not the fabric but trapped dust that scratches the coating when you wipe.
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The thing about many of the "proper" headphone roll-ups is they are dependent on a particular level of minimum bending radius, tension tolerance, and elastic deformation in the cords.

To put it more simply, many of them will simply ruin your headphones if they're done with reasonable frequency.

For thin earbud type cords, just coil them loosely in a small plastic bag or use a loose bundle secured with a broad velcro strap.

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I bought a giant pack of velcro straps on amazon several years ago and added at least one to every single wire or cable I use.

It made a massive difference in my quality of life and I still have so many velcro straps that I find myself giving them away.

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Please explain. I want to know if I'm doing those 2 things correctly...
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I've been using Ian's for the past few months since it was last posted here. It's quite good to the point I prefer it but wouldn't say it's changed my life.
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> deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them

This is me daily.

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I have this problem too!

It could make their lives so much better, but kind of awkward to broach. Perhaps sholladay‘s advice will work well.

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Don't tell them. Just use the information to silently judge everything they say or do, and have ever said or done. It's gotten me where I am today.
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Not sure what my knot is called but it’s never come undone or gone wonky for me. At step five of the standard knot above, just pull the yellow loop into the empty space on the left and the blue loop to the right. Surely that saves you having to change hands?
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I tried writing a similar comment. Yours is much clearer. This 100%. As a runner I used to have to re-tie multiple times per run. I corrected my mistake with this same fix probably a decade ago and haven’t had a loose shoelace since.
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Back when I was running, I used the "lace lock" method[0] because a loose heel would drive me to distraction (and because I wore clown shoes with wide toe boxes, there's no pressure from the front to keep the foot stable.)

[0] e.g. https://www.coachweb.com/gear/running-gear/heel-lock-lacing-...

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For sure. I've taken to using a similar method over the last couple of years as I've increased miles and needed to take steps (ha) to take better care of my feet over longer distances. I wouldn't recommend this setup for more active sports with lots of change of direction, but for steady plodding it provides a very consistent and dependable stride for a lot of miles.
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> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted)

You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots.

For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces with slight stretch to them, and the knots always stay done up.

In contrast when you buy a pair of fashion trainers, the laces in them are usually terrible and come undone several times per day as you have noted.

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No, it had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the laces.

It was because I was essentially tying a granny knot instead of a reef knot and anyone who knows anything about knots would realize that of course they would keep coming undone.

And for the record, since learning how to tie the correct knot (over 10 years ago now), I’ve had no problem with laces that have come with any of the following brands of shoes:

- Nike

- New Balance

- Asics

- Converse

- Vans

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Do you have a brand of those laces? The original ones on my Brooks runnign shoes are usually pretty good, but overtime they start getting more loose.
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I mean, yes, the lace quality is important too. But strictly speaking, not tying a granny knot will improve your results regardless of choice of lace.
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"On" brand running shoes have great laces for knot-holding, but they're so thin it's awkward to manipulate them to actually tie the knot in the first place.
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Same here, haha. A very cool coworker a decade ago was the person finally able to convey to me how to change that up, and it was lifechanging.
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>Right-over-left, left-over-right,

>Makes a knot both tidy and tight.

I think I'd find this harder to remember than the principle.

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Before your muscle memory is updated, all you need to remember is how to “quality check” the knot when you’re done. If the loops are perpendicular, it’s wrong, they should be aligned with the laces.

If it landed up perpendicular, start over (i.e. the part before you make the loops) with doing the opposite of what you did before e.g. right-over-left rather than left-over-right.

For me it was very easy to fix the pre-loop stage, trying to change the loop stage seemed way harder to me as I was already so practiced at it.

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I do a similar quality check when tying a square knot (right over left, left over right but without the bows - probably the default knot for something you don't intend to ever untie and don't have a Scout's encyclopedic knowledge of more specialized knots) - since it doesn't have the bows, the quality check is that it should have a line of symmetry whereas if you repeat the same direction twice the finished knot is more of a spiral, having no line of symmetry.
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