Finding things

I understand I'm not the only one having trouble remembering where I put things.

Thor

When we moved house and workshop three years ago I packed most of the hand tools, machine accessories and other gubbins into a variety of wheeled tool chests. Whilst most of the drawers are themed there are, inevitably, quite a few drawers with an eclectic mix of miscellaneous gubbins. A year ago I decided I needed my Record "Imp" vice. I went through every drawer (and a couple of boxes) twice and could not find it. I came to the conclusion that I must have left it in the old workshop (as seen in my recent post of my Pillar Too). Last week, while looking for something completely different I came across it lying on its side in a shallow drawer - hiding in plain sight.

The point of this ramble is to ask the question: Why does my eye/ brain not see what it is looking for? Is it because my mind's eye sees the vice upright and fastened to a bench and doesn't recognise the recumbent vice as a vice. I don't know but it can be infuriating. Mind you it did encourage me to make the instrument makers vice from the casting I've had forever (and could find).

Keep at it guys.

Rod

When I left the Air Force after 22 years service we moved from Lincolnshire back home to East Sussex, a number of the boxes of stuff were never unpacked and found their way into the loft, it was seven years before I got round to unpacking them, it was surprising how much stuff that we forgot we had, that was 35 years ago that we moved here and we are still in the same house, vowed to never move again having moved a number of times when posted from station to station in the Air Force. Dave W

I've lived in the same house for 88 years. There are drawers that I've probably opened twice in all that time.

Roy

Blame it on evolution! We only see things we can eat, or that might eat us.

Advice I've found to work better than wandering about cursing, is to repeatedly say the name of the missing item out loud while looking, and to search with a torch CSI style. Helps me concentrate I think. Sort of works, but I still have a long, long list of missing items.

I have the same problem, to the extent that I sometimes have to get my wife to look for things for me, only for her to find them in plain view in the middle of the bench-top. She reckons that it started after a minor stroke I had years ago.

With a failing memory, I try, but often fail, to put things back where they came from.

But often, it is like a pantomime.

"It's behind you!"

I can still find things that have been forgotten that I had!

Howard

I don't have much advice for finding the thing that is lost, but one of the best pieces of advice I've ever had is: when you do find it, put it in the place you first looked for it.

I hunted high and low for my bending spring and ended up buying another, the handy place I decided to hang it already had its twin hanging there.

Mike