When I put something down in a place that I don’t usually leave it there is an odd feeling of disquiet. It’s like my future self is trying to warn me that I will be really frustrated looking for the item. Sometimes it feels like someone is pranking me, running behind and moving my shit. I did that for forty odd years before realising that I can’t trust my memory.
This phenomenon is the premise of the film Memento, the life of a man who cannot make new memories. Well worth anyones time but extra salient for my ADHD peeps.
Take them out of the bedroom with me, don’t bother putting them on first thing because who does that, wander round making breakfast, and boom, they are GONE FROM THE APARTMENT.
For real though, the trick is to put it down, then take a few steps away, then look at it for a few seconds, then say where it is out loud (if possible, if you are at work or something you may seem crazy).
At least for me this has a very high success ratio.
I do the same but I usually say it to my wife or kids, so if it didn’t work then they can remind me 😉🤣
And if they are not around I just say “Hey Google remind me in X minutes/hours about blabla”, it’s actually a very good habit, and I have about 6 Tiles (like airtags) on all my important stuff that I can ring if I forget where I put it. They can also be used to locate my phone, I just need to find 1 device and press it to ring my phone and then find all the rest 😉
Edit: oh and another pro tip, cameras at the house can also be used to check if you locked the door! 😂
I have about 6 Tiles (like airtags) on all my important stuff that I can ring if I forget where I put it. They can also be used to locate my phone, I just need to find 1 device and press it to ring my phone and then find all the rest
I wouldn’t be able to leave the flat most mornings if I didn’t have Chipolo tags on my keys and a card one in my wallet.
How are those tiles? I’m always suspicious of them because the way airtags work involves some seriously sketch use of Apple’s location network – it’s basically a very specialized form of the creepy sonar phone hacking from The Dark Knight movie, in that all the Apple devices are recruited to spy on these things and phone home about them without their owner’s say-so.
Without top-level support from the major mobile operating system vendor, does it keep up? I mean, does it work well without Google being involved?
I open the app and see where I last was in contact with a device, and it will show me a map where or just say “ring” if it’s close by, there is supposedly a AirTag like functionality where you can report one of your devices as lost. And then it will alert me if another tile user is in range of my device, but I have never used that function.
I have also played around with apps like Tasker to make a notification show up whenever I get out of range of a AirTag, (not the same as the thing u can get by paying, thats just circle an area on a map and it will alert you if it’s outside that circle, I wanted to know if I myself left the circle without my device, not the other way around) that works too, but I had to add a task in Tasker to first kill the Tile app since while it was running my tiles are not advertising their Bluetooth id and thus i could not find them with Tasker.
No, no. Just put your things “some place safe” where you would “never forget” where they are. /s
Disclosure: I am in the process of cleaning my office now. Sure, half the office looks great, but I can’t find a ton of things that I use on a daily basis. I am wasting more time looking for things now that it is getting “organized”.
My plan now is to create more of an Adam Savage style workspace where everything is visible around me. I am convinced that drawers or plastic storage bins contain micro-blackholes that absorb anything I might consider useful.
I don’t disagree with you at all. I’m slowly moving in a similar direction. I also agree with that workspace philosophy. Something that I find vital is having a place for certain important things, like car keys. It is the only way that I can not lose them. And when people mess with things that I have organized in such a manner, it is very upsetting.
I quite like Dana K. White’s system for this. When putting something away she asks “if I were looking for this item where would I look for it first?” And wherever that place is is where the item goes. Now I keep all my Sharpie markers in the silverware drawer and I can always find one.
Dana White doesn’t write specifically for the adhd crowd, but I swear she’s the first organizer that has ever made sense to me. There’s more to her system than this, obviously, but not much, and it almost never involves buying more bins.
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