Does actually stopping to ask yourself “Now, where would I have put that thing?” help you find something you’ve misplaced?
No. Because I live with other mammals with their own ideas of where things go.
Nope. Because I would have put it over there, and clearly it’s not there.
The problem is where we SHOULD have put it, had we been logical, rational actors. We are clearly not, so the question we should be asking is, where would a deranged madman have put it?
Usually it helped, I have to stop and think what I did last time with the thing.
But I setup a camera in my workshop for this reason, so if I just stop, sit and watch the past me messing around
(if someone could create a selfhosted/local LLM integration that would track objects from video feed I want it!)
Yes, most of the time. Specially if I can remember what I was doing last time I used the thing.
No but seriously though, backtracking in your mind helps. Close your eyes and rewind the tape, step by step, what did I do before right now, and before that, and before that, and before that. You won’t remember where you put it, because you didn’t register to memory where you put it in the first place, but you will know where you have been, and where you last had the thing.
It works better when you really visualize it before your mind’s eye rather than half assing it. Brain remembers a lot, but the mechanical task of mental retrieval is on you, meaning putting in the actual work of visualization.
Sometimes, but only when I stopped to think “where will I look when I can’t find this?” before putting said object away.
Lol, no. I have 2 kids, 3 cats, an absent minded professor of a husband and perimenopause fuzzy brain. Nothing is ever put in a place than makes sense. I used to live in a world where I had perfect recall of every item in my house. Now I’m lucky if I find what I’m looking for in less than a week.
No matter, it’s always in the last place I look. Future me’s got that shit on lock!
Kind of, I have systems of where things should belong so I try to think where it ought to be.
I have a fool-proof system of exactly where things should be at all times. The whole issue arises when they are not.
No, and I get irrationally angry when I’m looking for something and someone asks “Well, where would you have put it?”
“You better start calling 911 now!”The only thing that worked was putting up a bunch of cameras so I can go back and look to see where my brain thought was a good spot to sit something in the moment.
“I’ll just put this down for a second, it won’t matter, the task I need to complete is trivial, it will be done so quickly that- hey, that thing is ALSO loose? I’m gonna need a bigger thing!”
Do you mind it when other people ask it of themselves? Maybe not quite as angry, but do you have some bigger objection or is it just that it’s not helpful to you?
The thing is that when we ask ourselves where we would have put that thing, we are asking someone else where they would have put that thing, if we were a person trying to help another person to try and figure out where they put that thing. We just so happen to be the same, thoroughly unhelpful person.
No, not at all. I only get upset because I’ve already asked myself many times to no avail, and the 28th time isn’t going to be the ticket.
That’s fair. I’m sorry you experience that. I can’t say I have much to offer by way of alternarives. Kind of why I asked.
It’s all good, I’ve learned to work around it. The camera part wasn’t a joke; a couple motion tracking cameras in my work area saves me dozens of hours a year if not more.
I don’t think I even registered that part of your comment. I 100% see the use of cameras.
I was thinking of strips of self adhesive gps tags.
Edit: I have been informed that this is not possible due to size constraints, for things like glasses and remotes. It does exist, however.
“Oh great. Where would I have put it when I thought I was being so fucking clever? It was an orange pen, maybe I put it by the fruit so I would remember it.”
If it was where I would have put it, I wouldn’t be looking for it…
Sometimes. Sometimes it at last narrows it down. But when I put something down somewhere really random or stupid it doesn’t help at all, but then not much helps in those cases.
It mostly works for me.
Now asking “where would my wife put it?” has lower effectiveness because it can be fucking anywhere at that point.
I definitely unconsciously ask myself that because my first thoughts would be the most likely place I put it, but no, I don’t think I would say it out loud unless I was trying to break the awkward silence while someone is watching me look for something.
