You’re not losing your mind after all

I’m sure we were all very happy to hear about the latest brain research which concludes that forgetting where you put stuff is perfectly normal, and not necessarily a sign that you have Alzheimer’s.

According to various studies quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the average person routinely misplaces as many as nine items a day, the top three being paperwork, keys, and of course, cellphones.

By the way – I’m not sure how reliable this research can be, because apparently it involves having test subjects fill out questionnaires, which means – you’re asking forgetful people to try to remember how forgetful they are.

But no question, misplacing things is annoying: so what should you do about it?

The solutions you typically hear involve memory training, setting up a clear routine – but I think the real problem is the way we schedule ourselves.

Schedules are too tight. There’s no slack time. No screw-up time. So every little bobble is an emergency.

A third of the subjects surveyed in one forgetfulness study said they spent 15 minutes a day looking for things. And when you don’t have that 15 minutes in your schedule, you panic which makes finding things even harder.

You need to build some slack time into the day.

And if its something you can replace, you have to know when to give up, and just buy a new one. It takes less time, plus it’s a fact that you always find what you lost right after you buy the replacement.

I myself have 11 pairs of reading glasses and 24 screwdrivers.

Problem solved.