Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

If you’re not careful, your key ring can quickly get out of control. Before you know it, you’ll have five keys for things you don’t own anymore, heaps of rewards cards and a few tools you don’t really need. You can handle this situation in a lot of ways. Let’s look at a few of the best.

Picture: Zurbagan, indigolotos, Kurt Nordstrom

Segregate Your Keys

Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

First things first: It’s time to organise those keys. Lay all your keys (and anything else on your key ring) out on a table. Pick through and get rid of anything you don’t use any more.

Then, group your keys together by function. Put transportation-related keys on one ring, work keys on another, occasional keys elsewhere and so forth. After everything is sorted, remove any keys you don’t need.

If you’d like a quick-release option to ditch or add keys, mini-carabiners like this work well, as does the True Utility Keyring system and something like a FREEKey. With these, you can leave a set of keys in your house or car and only attach them when you need them. This means you only have to carry your everyday keys with you all the time, and anything else can get added on later.

Consolidate Loyalty Cards Onto Your Phone

Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

One of the most obnoxious ways a keyring might bloat in size is loyalty card key fobs. These handy but space-wasting cards are great when you hit up the shops, but they’re obnoxious at all other times of the day. Thankfully, you can easily ditch them.

Both Android and iOS have built-in system to deal with rewards cards. If you have a store’s app, you can load up Google Wallet or Passbook to store your rewards card number. If you don’t want to download lots of apps, we like Key Ring as a pretty simple solution that stores all your rewards cards numbers in one single place. Just scan your rewards cards into Key Ring, and you can throw out the little fobs and never think of them again.

Get Rid Of The Key Ring With An Alternative

Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

Sometimes, the bulk of a key ring comes more from the ring and attachments. The common split key rings are hard to organise, come in all kinds of sizes, and generally add bulk. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a lot of alternative systems out there for organising your keys, from DIY solutions to commercial ones. Here are a few of our favourites that cut down on the bulk:

  • Keydisk: The Keydisk system is pretty simple, but it works well. Keys go in a triangular box and fold out easily when you need them. It holds up to six keys, and it works with car remotes. It slims down your keys only a little bit, but it makes them jangle around a lot less.
  • A zip tie: If you’re looking to really just take down a little bulk from a few keys, you can use a zip tie instead of a ring.
  • Keyport: The Keyport stuffs all your keys into a little box which allows you to slide them out easily. The whole thing is about the size of a Tic Tac box.
  • Swiss Army-Style Folding Keychain: Chopping off the tops of your keys and stuffing them inside a Swiss Army knife is a old DIY trick. It might make it a little tough to get through airport security, but it definitely cuts off a lot of bulk from your keys. KeySmart is a solid commercial solution if you don’t want to do it yourself.
  • Chop off the tops completely: You can also just go all in and chop off the tops of your keys completely. Redditor mattfrancis13 cut off the tops of his keys then clipped them together with a nut and bolt. It’s an insanely small setup, and it’s certainly the most minimal approach.

There are plenty of other solutions for key storage out there, so it’s worth experimenting or looking around if none of the above fit your needs.

Use a Pocket Clip System

Four Ways To Minimise Your Key Ring

Another method of dealing with a clunky key ring is to use a pocket clip system. Essentially, the idea here requires you to hook your keys to the top of your pocket so they don’t jangle around and stab you as much. This allows you to clip your keys to your belt, bag or any other pocket on your pants.

Like the split key alternatives, there are a lot of different ways to do this. This suspension clip or a quick-release system like this all do the trick. All these clips keep your keys handy, and they’re lightweight.


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