How do I stop losing things?

People who never lose their keys aren't better at remembering; they have one place keys go, every time, without thinking. Memory has nothing to do with it. Building that structure for the four or five things you lose most takes an afternoon and largely solves the problem.

What you'll need

• A hook, bowl or tray by the door
• Bluetooth trackers (optional)
• Labels (optional)

Step by step

1. List the things you actually lose.For most people it's keys, phone, wallet, glasses and chargers. Solve those five and the problem largely disappears.
2. Create a drop zone by the door for anything that leaves the house with you.A hook, a bowl, a shelf. One place, immediately inside the door, so it's on the natural path.
3. Give every other frequent item one designated home.Not a general area — a specific place. 'The kitchen' isn't a location; 'the second drawer' is.
4. Return things immediately rather than putting them down temporarily.'I'll put it away later' is where almost everything is lost. Two seconds now saves twenty minutes later.
5. Put a tracker on the genuinely important items.Keys, wallet, bag. Bluetooth trackers are inexpensive and turn a lost afternoon into a thirty-second search.
6. Reduce the number of things in circulation.Fewer chargers, fewer bags, fewer sets of keys. Every duplicate multiplies the possible locations.
7. Do a two-minute reset each evening.Everything back to its place. It's the maintenance that keeps the system working.
8. When something goes missing, retrace deliberately rather than searching randomly.Think about the last time you definitely had it and what you did next. Random searching finds things by luck.

Tips

• Bright or distinctive keyrings, phone cases and glasses cases make things much easier to spot. Black items in a dark bag are a design problem.
• Photograph the inside of your bag before travelling. It's genuinely useful for knowing what's missing.
• If a designated place isn't working, it's probably in the wrong location. Put it where you naturally end up, not where it logically should be.
• For anything critical — passports, documents — one location and an index note is far more reliable than memory.

Common mistakes

• Relying on remembering — If you put something in a different place each time, there's nothing to remember. It's a structural problem.
• Vague designated areas — 'Somewhere in the kitchen' isn't a location. It has to be a specific place.
• Putting things down 'temporarily' — This is where nearly everything is lost. The temporary spot is never recorded anywhere.
• Too many duplicates — Three chargers in circulation means three possible locations for the one you need.

Questions people ask