If you are putting something in a special place, SAY IT OUT LOUD while you are still looking at it. “I’m putting the screwdriver on this shelf.”
You’ll still forget but you’ll feel extra dumb when you finally find it again.
I have this shitty ability that I remember better about where other people left something than where I left what I had in my hands.
“I put it somewhere so I wouldn’t lose it” is a thought that runs through my head at least once a week.
For me it’s, “I shouldn’t be doing this. I’ll never find it again. This is an awful place to put this,” as I commit to setting something down in the abyss.
Protip: when you’re looking for something and you find it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it in the first place you looked.
All my stuff would be in the fridge. Always the first place I look cuz “maybe I set it down in the fridge when I was grabbing something.”
I am absolutely horrible for this.
Years ago senior week was rolling around and my parents were going on vacation. They left the day before I did. I had packed up the clothing I needed cleaned out my truck I was ready to go.
The next morning I woke up and looked for my keys, they were gone. I just had them the prior day and I knew that I had put them somewhere where I couldn’t possibly forget and lose them. I specifically remembered doing that, but as I kept looking and they kept not showing up, I expected that I dreamed it. So I went from looking places that I might have put them to retracing my steps for where I probably put them. Hours and hours later, it was still no good. It was infuriating. I was supposed to be at the beach by now. I went ahead and went to bed that night.
The next morning I woke up determined to find the keys. I did a systematic sweep of the vehicle and then started inside and went counterclockwise through every room looking in every nook and cranny. After going through every area in the house that I had been in for the past 48 hours they still didn’t show up.
Now I’m looking in drawers and cabinets where I didn’t go. I had torn through my room topped to bottom left to right front to back. I decided I was going to go back out and check the truck again, But it was just starting to rain outside, so I put my shoes on. Right there in the toe of my right shoe or my car keys. I can’t possibly lose my keys if they’re in my shoes it’s not like I would go to the beach without my shoes on. It just didn’t occur to me too go quite that far while I was looking for them.
I feel for you! The amount of times I’ve torn my living space apart to find something in an unusual but simple place (Or just never see it again). “It’ll be safe here”, “I’ll never miss it if i put it right here”… Some say our brains have all the information that they haver ever processed. Why does it fight us so hard when we try to retrieve something we know damn well it has the answers to?
