For the orderly with too many watches/not enough time, watch rotation rituals?

[-JP]

Here's what I started doing for several reasons. I started realizing I am too indecisive with the watch of the day I wanted to throw on (besides my work beater watches I wear during business hours that are usually a digital/quartz) I like a little order to the madness so I started a new ritual and its been working out for me. I have a watch winder but I don't believe in constantly running my watches on the winder when I don't plan on wearing them for weeks on end. So I keep them on the watch winder and just use it as storage but then I pick one watch for the week I plan to wear. I turn on that particular winder to keep it going for the times during the week I'm not wearing it to keep it running. The following week, I move on to the next watch, stop the winder on the former and let it wind down and "rest" and repeat that process. It seems like a good way to not overuse any watch and not let the watch go too long without running which I feel both are not that good for mechanical watches, if you want to maximize the scheduled service intervals. From my experience with collecting, I feel a watch needs to run but also rest, just like any machinery. Its been working out well where no watch will sit for more then 2 months without running this way. It also makes the choice of what to wear that much easier and breaks my habit of where I wind up wearing the same watch for too long overlooking my others in the collection. Of course rules can be broken. For instance, if I'm wearing a diver that week and I have a wedding or formal event to go to, I'll fire up a dressy watch for the occasion, other then that they will all be in rotation. Anyone else has a rotation ritual?

[FuzzyB]

I let my 3-year old daughter pick out my watch each morning. If I pick, I tend to choose the same ones every day or wear one for a week or two at a time. When she picks, I'm almost guaranteed something I would not have selected that day. It makes things interesting and I find that I pay more attention to my watch when she picks it out.

[-JP]

Love that response! When my baby girl gets a little older maybe I'll have her do that as well! What a great way to wear a watch with such sentiment!

[Nutty28]

Mine isn’t so much of a ritual, I think. I try to wear all of them for at least once a month.

Like most, I have weekend only watches, work pieces (consist of divers and non-divers) and more dressy pieces (which I sometime wear to work).

I usually plan on what to wear the night before. I will look at my watch boxes, look at the time on each of them, and pick one that is either already synchronized to the time at the moment, or it matches the time when I leave the house the next morning. With the former, I will then put that watch on and wear it for a few hours, so that it will be ready by the next morning.

And by that evening after work, I will go through the same process to pick my next watch to wear for the next day, but I will ignore the ones that are still ticking.

Does it always work? I used to have a hard time doing this. What helped? I got over (well almost) the need to match the date with the day. I do break the rules, if I really want to wear a particular watch, or none of them meet the “criteria”.

What is my rationale? I am also in the same line of thoughts as JP about keeping them running regularly, but not to the extent of everyday. The other reason…. (ok, don’t make fun of me….), I am also trying to minimize the need of adjusting the screw down crown too often to reduce wear.

[KennethRSloan]

I have two different drills - one for PW and one for WW.

For PW:

a) if traveling across time zones, I typically carry one of my WWII GCT watches
b) otherwise, every Sunday I move (more or less chronologically) through my inventory, selecting my "weekly carry". I occasionally "back up" in the chronological
order to give preference to recently serviced watches - I'm hoping that my *next* pass through the list will put them all in chronological order - but that assumes no new acquisitions (HA!)

This week, I'm carrying a 1909 Ball-Hamilton 999.

For WW, again we split into two drills: around the house and "for public consumption"

a) around the house, I rotate weekly - this is still being sorted out, but will eventually become chronological.

This week, my "around the house beater" is a 1960's Timex 100 on a Speidel Twist-o-flex band

b) for public consumption, it's too complicated to follow strict rules. Depending on the type of interaction ( teaching a class, an important meeting, an evening event ), I select
"something appropriate", with some attention paid to not repeating things worn recently. I have several that are appropriate for impressing students from the front of the classroom,
some that work well in meetings, some for formal-ish evening events (and some for the poker table).

For all of the above, I (more or less religiously) try to record "last worn" dates for all watches - to help remind me if I start over-using the same watch.

Eventually, *everything* gets worn (If I can't wear it, it goes - with *very* rare exceptions)

For daily wear, the PW-of-the-week is the default, unless there is a specific reason to wear a particular type of WW. Largely, this reflects the fact that I have about twice as many PW as WW, and the PW are more generic - most of them (with a few notable exceptions) interchange freely, while WW tend to be more specifically targeted at particular (types of) events.

When I travel, I usually pack a GCT for travel days, at least one "formal" evening WW, and at least one "informal" day-time WW.

I like to arrange things so that anyone who DOES notice one of my watches rarely sees the same one twice in any reasonably short period of time. But, you know, it's rare that anyone *admits* to noticing a WW. People are much more likely to notice a PW - and ask about it. So, it's often difficult to decide what watch will impress today's audience - and even harder to tell if my choice is a success.

[popoki nui]

No rhyme nor reason. Whatever catches my eye. Sometimes I'll be listening to 70's music; that may trigger a run of wearing my 70's watches. Same with the 80's. Sometimes I feel sporty:G-shock or Swatch. Feeling a bit posh? Rolex or Omega. Some days, I haven't a clue....I'll just grab something. I'm sure doctors have a name for this behaviour, and maybe even some medication. I should investigate.


Nah...

[Raza]

No rhyme nor reason. Whatever catches my eye. Sometimes I'll be listening to 70's music; that may trigger a run of wearing my 70's watches. Same with the 80's. Sometimes I feel sporty:G-shock or Swatch. Feeling a bit posh? Rolex or Omega. Some days, I haven't a clue....I'll just grab something. I'm sure doctors have a name for this behaviour, and maybe even some medication. I should investigate.


Nah...

Same. These days I tend to wear the same watch for days--or even weeks--and then move on. I think I wore my B-1 for two or three months when I first got it. And I've been wearing my MM300 almost exclusively this whole summer (on a number of NATOs and the bracelet).

[whatmeworry]

Following Der Amf's advice, I pick a watch for work each week. I work a compressed week, so a week's worth of hours in 4 (long) days. The "work" watch will get worn on 3 of those (Mon, Tue, Thu), Fri as a casual day and Wed is the day I have off. I tend to rotate this through my dressing pieces. On the other 4 days anything goes, it really is just down to my mood in the morning and my plans for the day.
I do now keep track of what I've worn and periodically make a decision about whether to keep or sell watches that haven't had any wrist time.

[OhDark30]

I tried to keep my collection small enough that it all fitted in a small tin (fail) and then that I could keep it all wound by hand (a valiant effort, but also fail)
I'd pick what I liked, sometimes wearing pretty unlikely things to work, and found my 24hr fun sometimes through the nightshift

Like Olly, I've kept records, and purged the chronically unworn

These days, it's all about the Strela, and I'm wondering how low I can go
Hers the core

I'm much happier with a few watches I love and wear, rather than many I like and live mainly in a box

[Der Amf]

I've four watches that I wear in strict rotation. Generally speaking they arrive on the Sunday and last to the Thursday, but only sometimes get worn all five days. They include my pair of slightly bigger autos, and my pair of Seiko manuals

I've two watches that I wear Fri/Sat, one one weekend, one the next. They're both small and pretty and seemingly delicate and Communist Bloc.

I've four watches that interrupt this: a couple of quartz watches for when I need to not care, and a couple of pretty watches I couldn't wear day in day out but which I enjoy for the odd day or evening.

This regime slowly evolved as I realised there were some watches I appreciate more when worn multiple days, and some which I appreciate less if I over-wear them, ie I worked out what it was that made me happy, and now by putting in a bit of discipline I get that happiness all the time.