Organized Medicine

I recently found this information on storing and disposing of medications on the CVS pharmacy website. This topic comes up quite a lot when organizing homes, so I'm posting the entire article below - great info - especially on meds disposal!

Becca

Safe Medication Storage at Home

Appropriate storage of medications, vitamins and supplements in the home is essential for their proper use and safety. Storing medications properly is especially important in homes with small children, elderly or disabled family members, or in homes where children or grandchildren may visit. Keeping your medications stored properly will also keep medications in the physical condition that helps them work best for you. Here are a few simple steps you can use at home to help you store your medication appropriately.

Clean Out the Clutter

At least once a year, you should check the labels on all of your medications. Medications that are past their expiration date, that have a change in color, smell, texture, or medicines that you are no longer taking should be disposed of properly. Expired medications may not work as well for you, or may even be harmful. All medications kept in storage should be in-date, clearly labeled and stored in their original containers. Never combine different medications into a single bottle. If you ever find a bottle of pills without a label, throw out the contents. Medications that are in-date and taken as directed by your doctor will work the best for you, and will have the lowest risk of side effects.

A Place for Everything

Storing your medications in the correct environments ensures that they will stay in the best condition to be the most effective for you. Some medications need to be refrigerated, while others should be protected from light. Check with your pharmacist if you are not sure. Most tablets, capsules, creams, lotions, or liquids are best kept in a cool, dry place at room temperature between 59°F and 86°F. Avoid keeping medicines in direct sunlight, and avoid extreme hot or cold temperatures as well as humidity. For these reasons, it is generally not a good idea to store your medications in a bathroom medicine cabinet or in the kitchen. It is also not a good idea to leave your medications in your car for long periods of time, which can become either very hot or very cold depending on the time of day. Never carry your medications in your pocket, where your body heat can damage them. Your pharmacist can help you determine the best storage conditions for your medications.

Special Considerations for Kids

Purses, the pocket of a jacket, or a pillbox are places where a child can easily find your medication, possibly resulting in poisoning. If medications must be carried in a purse or jacket, keep them in a secure pillbox, and never carry more than you need for the day. In your own home, keep all medications securely locked in a childproof cabinet. All medications should be stored in tightly closed child-resistant packaging. For those who require non-safety caps on the medicine bottles, be certain to keep these vials out of the reach of children and grandchildren who may be visiting. If you witness a child swallowing any of your medicines, contact the National Poison Control Hotline at 1-800-222-1222.

How Should I Dispose of My Medicine?

Studies show that pharmaceutical waste is present in the water we use and that certain drugs may harm our environment. Unfortunately, there are no waste treatment plants in the United States that are engineered to remove potentially harmful drugs from sewage. With this in mind, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy came up with the first consumer guidelines for the proper disposal of prescription medications in February 2007. The guidelines say that if you need to dispose of unused, unneeded, or expired medications you may:

• take the drugs out of their original containers and throw them in the trash
• as an extra precaution, mix the drugs with coffee grounds or kitty litter or some other undesirable substance, then put them in an empty can or sealed bag before throwing them out.

Federal guidelines say do not flush drugs down the toilet. The only exception is if the drug's instructions specifically tell you to flush them down the toilet. Pharmacies, water districts, or solid and hazardous waste agencies may sponsor take back programs to which you can bring unused medications. Check locally with these agencies or with your pharmacy for more information.

After getting rid of all the outdated pills you don't need anymore, you'll have plenty of space for those that you do.

--Karen Saenko, PharmD candidate with Allyson L. Wojtaszek, PharmD

Updated: September 26, 2007 by Rachel Maynard, PharmD Candidate and Deborah M. Johns, PharmD

Sunk Cost Bias

 The Sunk Cost Bias 

and 4 Ways to Overcome It

I see this problem often in my work with clients and in teaching: people find it difficult to let go of an item (or idea or belief or hobby or activity....etc...) because of the cost incurred in getting it. Sunk Cost is a term economists use for something spent that cannot be recovered.

Read on if you have trouble clearing out stuff in your life that bring no value to you.

(Re-posted from litemind and published by Luciano Passuello)

The sunk cost bias is a thinking trap that not only slows down personal improvement efforts, but one which can make people literally waste their whole lives on — something I’ve seen happening with disturbing regularity. The good news is that, like most thinking traps, the biggest step you can take to overcome it is by simply becoming aware of it. 


Suppose you pre-ordered a non-refundable ticket to a basketball game. However, on the night of the game, you simply don’t feel like going anymore: you’re tired, there’s a blizzard raging outside, and the game will be televised. You regret the fact that you bought the ticket because, frankly, you would prefer to stay at home, light up your fireplace and comfortably watch the game on TV. 

But the fact is that you did buy the ticket — and it was quite expensive and hard to get. What would you do?

The Sunk Cost Bias Exposed

Sunk costs are costs that are irrecoverable. It’s something that you already spent and that you won’t get back, regardless of future outcomes. It’s like that gym club membership you bought: whether you get its benefits or not, the money is gone and there’s no way to get it back.
In the basketball game ticket example, the point is that the money is already gone, so now you are better off doing what pleases you best. So, unless you can sell the ticket, just forget about what you paid for it. You are better off using it to help fuel the fireplace while you comfortably enjoy the game on TV.

This is, of course, easier said than done. There are many psychological blocks in the way of simply discarding an expensive ticket. And if that holds true for a mere basketball game ticket, imagine how strong that effect is when it comes to, say, abandoning a long-time relationship that you invested so much time on, but that just isn’t working anymore.

That’s the sunk cost bias. It’s what you may have heard as “throwing good money after bad”, but it isn’t just about money: any type of investment you make — time, money, effort, anything — is subject to this thinking trap.

Are You a Victim of the Sunk Cost Bias?

Persisting with bad decisions due to our irrational attachment to costs that we cannot recover has become so common that you can find them just about anywhere. Big organizations and governments excel at it. (A government that insists on a war so the lives already spent “are not wasted” comes to mind, but I digress…)

The fact is that this mental trap permeates our decision making and affects not only organizations, but it deeply affects us at a personal level, too. Check out some examples:

• Bad overall life decisions: What would you say about persisting on an unfulfilling job or career, just because you ‘invested so much time in it’? Or persisting on a bad relationship, just to ‘make all those years worth it’? These are the saddest cases of the sunk cost effect that I know, since people can literally waste years — if not their whole lives — because of it.
• Bad financial decisions: Do you know anyone who refused to sell something for a perfectly reasonable price, just because they spent so much money in it (maybe property or stocks)? What about casino gamblers that simply won’t quit, claiming they need to make the money that they already lost “worth it”?
• Bad Everyday Decisions: You ordered too much food, but you eat it anyway despite being full. You keep useless clutter in your home, if only because you paid for it. You watch a bad movie up to the end, only because you started watching it. The examples just go on and on. The consequences for each of them may seem trivial at first, but if you think about it, we make these mistakes so often that they add up pretty quickly.

Why Do We Fall Into the Trap and How to Avoid It

So, if dwelling on sunk costs is a bad idea, why do we do it? More importantly, how do we overcome this thinking trap? Here are 4 main reasons why we do it, along with ways to overcome each of them.

1. We Want to Make the Investment Worth Our While

This is the fundamental reasoning behind how we deal with sunk costs. We have a genuine interest in making our efforts worth our while. We don’t want to feel that we spent anything in vain — time, money, anything. However, even if we know deep inside that our approach is wrong, we still have trouble abandoning it.

Solution

Sure, we all expect to have a good return on what we invest. It would be insane not to. Just make sure you’re not on a situation solely because you made the investment in the first place. You don’t make a bad move any better by dwelling more on it, unless you can effectively make something that changes the expected outcome.

Stop spending resources on a bad move — throwing good money after bad — immediately and start spending these resources on a new one: Cut your losses and move on!

2. We Fear Failing and Looking Foolish

We live in a success-oriented culture. Cutting losses means admitting you made a mistake, if not in public, at least to yourself. Our egos will always stubbornly try to hold us to our commitments, so we don’t need to admit our imperfections. If you made a public commitment, you’re even less likely to break it, as there will probably be a lot of explaining to do.

Solution

Allow yourself to make mistakes. Quickly admitting your mistakes is much more productive than entrenching yourself in a situation just to “save face”. Be aware that quitting is not failing (actually, sometimes it’s exactly the opposite). 

Better yet, do like Socrates and think differently: become proud of admitting your errors. Change your attitude from hiding mistakes to actively exposing them. Look for them: the more, the merrier. You’ll surely feel defenseless and uneasy at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll feel invulnerable to harsh criticism. 

Moreover, instead of focusing on the sunk costs, take pride in having recognized the costs associated with sticking to the old approach.

3. We Become Attached to Our Commitments

After we decide to do something, we feel attached to what we committed to. And the bigger the commitment, the harder it is to let go. Not only that, but it’s a human trait to be overconfident that everything we set ourselves to do will pay off. We’re biased when we evaluate the probability of success of already-made commitments. (This is known as overly optimistic probability bias.)

Solution

Be aware of the natural bias to stay on your current course of action. While considering other options, evaluate the status quo as it was just another option, rather than the front-runner.
Also, try to detach yourself emotionally from your past decisions. Be especially careful with things that worked at some point in the past as this is not a guarantee that they’ll work in your favor again.

I like to practice what I call “zero-based thinking”. Forget about the past and consider this very moment as your “point-zero” in time: act like all you have is the present. I often do this by pretending that I just woke up with some sort of amnesia. I imagine myself in my current situation, but without any knowledge of how I got there. This way, it’s much easier to focus on my current situation, instead of clinging to past decisions that would drag me down.

4. We Lose Sight of Our Underlying Goals

Sometimes we become so preoccupied by how much time and effort we put into something that we lose sight of its relevance in the greater scheme of things. We become attached to the means and forget about the ends.

Solution

Always be mindful of long-term objectives. Don’t confuse any greater goal you want to achieve with the specific means of implementation you’re attached to. Don’t get caught up in justifying your current actions. 

Moving away from the basketball game example, suppose your original goal was to have fun, so you rented a movie. If the movie turns out to be a bad one, don’t forget that your goal was not to spend two hours watching a movie, but to have fun. So, turn it off and go have fun, somehow.

Let Go of the Past, Move On

I’m not recommending that you become a quitter by any means. The point is to be always aware of your current situation. If you decide to stick with your current approach, that’s great. Do it consciously and for the right reasons. 

And remember that the greatest example of sunk cost you pay is with your own time, and which you will not be able to recover: all that you lived up until now is gone — you just can’t reclaim that time. Stop clinging to the past and make the most of your life right now.