Good practices: 12 (Shutting your front door as you leave)

This is one good practice that I'd put in place a few decades ago, to the point of it becoming almost instinctive now.

    If your front door lock is a Yale key lock, rather than a mortice lock, you can just shut and lock the door by pulling it to.

    You can also end up locking yourself out, however, if you haven't got your key on you at the time.

    To ensure that this doesn't happen to me, because I live on my own, I developed the good practice/habit way back to always insert the key into the lock, turning the key in the lock as I pull the door to.

    This also means that the process is practically noiseless -- I hate door slamming. 

    Of course, it's also good practice to leave a spare key with someone trustworthy, preferably a neighbour, but they might not be around for you to fetch the spare key, so it's ultimately still best to make sure you don't lock yourself out at all in the first place.