You know that moment when you misplace something, and it takes forever to find? It could be your keys or a handwritten to-do list or anything else that seemingly just disappeared into thin air. Maybe you never found it.
A piece from NPR this week collects six techniques that would be worth remembering to help you solve this very common human problem:
- Identify what makes your missing object stand out in its environment.
- Think about likely scenarios of how and why your object might have gotten lost in the first place — and where it might be.
- Recreate the movement of the object around the area you first remembered losing it.
- Break out of your search routine by changing your perspective.
- Look in weird and unexpected areas.
- Divide your space up into sections, then search each section thoroughly.
And if none of these tips work, the experts have one last suggestion that isn’t very non-obvious but I’ll share it anyway: be tenacious and keep looking.
