I'm good at certain things. What cool stuff can I do with these skills?

December 26, 2014 3:23 PM

These skills come intuitively to me: organizing things (email, shelves, boxes, etc.), spatial perception (navigation, fitting things into other things, rough estimations of length, etc.), and paying attention to detail. What cool things can I do with some or all of these skills?

I'm not particularly interested in careers or major life choices -- I'm more curious about ways to apply these skills in weird, interesting, and fun new ways, no matter how small. Ways in which these skills could be useful to other people are also welcome. (Don't worry, I also am interested in activities that will help me build different skills, but that is not within the scope of this question.)

How many times I can say "skills"?

posted by Ragini to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (14 answers total)

I think you could be a part-time professional organizer. People will pay $50-100/hour for those services.
posted by heathrowga at 3:31 PM on December 26, 2014

Some ideas: Model-building, woodworking, sewing, organizing tupperware, winning guess-my-weight games at the state fair, parking in tough spaces, backing up with a trailer...?
posted by aka burlap at 3:38 PM on December 26, 2014

Best answer: Be that awesome friend who helps friends pack/move and/or reorganize their closets.
posted by radioamy at 3:47 PM on December 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh also if you don't want to be a full-on professional organizer, you could probably pick up some odd job gigs just by asking around. The family I babysat for used to hire me to pack the kids for camp, organize the mom's office, help the Grandmother organize for a move, etc.
posted by radioamy at 3:48 PM on December 26, 2014

You could study industrial design and industrial organization.
posted by amtho at 4:20 PM on December 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Well the Howard Gardner Theory of Multiple Intelligences includes "Spatial" as one, and some specialties cited on the Web for those high in that intelligence are: interior decorator, architect, artist, sailor, costume design, landscaping, logo creation, photo composition, inventor.
posted by forthright at 5:21 PM on December 26, 2014

Best answer: My friend has similar skills and in the past two years he's gotten really into woodworking. Specifically dovetail joinery, which is this whole thing.

You also might find particular pleasure in origami. Do you know about kusudama?

The best helping-other-people thing about your skillset is tetrising things into other things. I bet you can pack a car trunk like nobody's business. Offer to go on ikea trips with your friends and help them fit the boxes in the back seat. You'll be as a golden god.
posted by Mizu at 6:18 PM on December 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Shamehole Management which is what I sort of do "for fun" with friends who are in over their heads with big houses and too much stuff. I go over and help them take a roomful of stuff and turn it into junk, plastic boxes of stuff and things to use/sell/admire. It's super fun. There are also more formal professional organizers and also people who just help people do estate sales and/or clean out hoarder houses. Some of this depends not on your skills as much as your personality when using those skills. Also you could be an archivist or even someone in records management. Again, some of this is personality based, whether you'd like making use of your skills in this way.
posted by jessamyn at 7:21 PM on December 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

Well, Project Management is one thing. Remodeling is another. Remodeling requires attention to detail, ability to coordinate a number of activities simultaneously, and to insure that things A, B and Q are done and finished in time to start W and Z.

So maybe you'd want to do some building with Habitat for Humanity to see how it all pieces together.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:31 PM on December 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Aviation. The skills you describe are all critical to aviation.

Get your pilot's license!
posted by Thistledown at 10:11 AM on December 27, 2014

Model-railroading, integrated circuit design, sculpture, plumbing design
posted by Jesse the K at 2:05 PM on December 27, 2014

Elaborate cake decorating, particularly some of the "simpler" designs here. You could even buy plain cakes to decorate if the baking part doesn't interest you.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:17 PM on December 27, 2014

Response by poster: I marked as best the answers that particularly resonated with me and my personality, but these are all great. (And keep em coming if you have more!)

I bet you can pack a car trunk like nobody's business.

Word. WORD.
posted by Ragini at 12:09 AM on December 28, 2014

Best answer: I work for a cabinet company. A big one. We hire a lot of people with good spatial relations skills as kitchen designers, as product engineers, as CNC programmers and as industry-specific software engineers. We also love them for logistics, shipping, and load planning. (And of course, as someone mentioned above, joinery on the plant floor.)

This is a very rare skill. Congrats! My guess is that you have a hard time articulating what you're seeing or how you'd do the thing you can see clearly needs to be done - or at least a lot of our employees with this skill, do. Learn to use software like Autocad so you don't have to use words to describe your plan.
posted by pomegranate at 10:37 AM on December 29, 2014