A step by step guide to find your lost keys

We’ve all been there. You’re just about to leave the house, you put your shoes on and
reach for the door handle when you realize that you’re missing your keys. You start
searching the most obvious places first: your pockets, your bag and the few spots around
the house where you usually keep them. Nada! Your keys might as well have left the face
of the Earth because you can’t see a single trace of them anywhere.

Scientists have long studied memory and how it’s stored in our brains. Many
factors influence our memory, like our age, our interest and familiarity with the
topic and how complex the matter at hand is. Still, remembering where you’ve
put your keys shouldn’t be that hard, right?

Yet, this keeps happening more often than we think. On average, people misplace
about nine items a day and spend over 15 minutes searching for them (keys being one
of the most commonly lost items). That can easily turn into a mountain of wasted time just
searching for lost things. In psychology, interference theory offers some explanation as
to why this might be happening. Memories are transient and change as time passes. If
we have two or three similar memories that are close to each other, they can interfere
with one another and our memory of what has happened can be impaired. In the case of
your keys, if you don’t have a designated spot in the house for storing them, you can keep
going between the different places you think you last saw them without any certainty that
you’re right.

Luckily, there are things you can do to make this happen less often or to stop it
from happening altogether. Implement them right and you’ll never have to worry
about losing your keys again.

Six easy steps you can take to find your lost keys
 Choose a dedicated spot

It might sound like an obvious one, but you’d be surprised how many people either don’t
have one or don’t use the one they have. This is, by far, the biggest cause for losing keys
and spending countless hours searching for them. That not only causes frustration, but it
can also lead to a disruption to your work and private life if you’re often late at the office
or for meeting with friends. So, take a moment and decide what’s the best spot in the
house where you’ll be storing your keys from now on. Make sure the place is easily
accessible so that you have the incentive to use it and that you can easily grab the keys
if you’re in a rush. A small container on your shoe cabinet or a “key slot” on your coat rack
can be an ideal place for this.

Use a keychain to group them

Now that you have a dedicated place for your keys, make sure you group them together
so that you don’t have to handle each one individually. Storing your keys on a keychain
will not only make them more visible and, therefore, easier to find, but you’d also be less
likely to lose them as they’ll make more noise if they accidentally fall off your possession.
A keychain is great as you can also attach the keys to the inside of your bag so that you’re
confident they are safely stored at all times while you go about your day.
 Make copies

While having all your keys in the same place is convenient, it’s also a recipe for disaster
if you don’t have a backup plan. Always make at least one more copy of your keys in case
you lose the originals. A hidden place in your car is a great spot for storing your extra
copies as it can help you avoid getting locked out of your house (just make sure you don’t
have your street and house number on them in case someone else gets a hold of them).
You can store another copy in your suitcase if you happen to travel frequently or use an
empty shelf in your wardrobe where you know you can always find them.

Use memory techniques

There are many different mental tricks you can employ to improve your memory, but a
very well-known one is called the memory palace. With this technique you create a mental
image of a physical space, say your home, and try to associate things you want to
remember with different parts of this imaginary place. This is a very useful technique if
you are trying to remember patterns or a list of things, but you can also use it to recall
where you’ve put your keys. So, take a moment and visualize your home. The more
details you can add to it the more impactful and successful the exercise would be.
Think of where you would like to store your keys – say the shoe cabinet in the hallway.
Imagine a human-sized pair of keys “walking in” the front door and taking a seat on the
shoe cabinet. The more surreal the vision, the more memorable it will be. Try this a few
times. This should help make it easier for you to always use the designated spot for
storing your keys and, hopefully, make it easier to find them later on.