I have never had that happen luckily, it only takes me about ten minutes to change strings,. I first check that the bridge is at the correct angle, because if it is leaning slightly forward you will get it popping like happened to you. I check the angle of the bridge every single time I tune up, using a credit card, takes about five seconds.

Instead of messing around with rulers its easier to take a close up picture of the position of the feet of the bridge and use it as a reference, against the notches in the f holes, or even, which I do, put a very , very tiny mark with a pencil below and at the side of, and also below each foot, just a dot would do. You can wipe off a tiny graphite mark just by damping the end of your finger.