Nosotros've all been there. You're just about to leave the business firm, y'all put your shoes on and reach for the door handle when you realize that you're missing your keys. Y'all commencement searching the most obvious places starting time: your pockets, your bag and the few spots around the house where y'all usually keep them. Nada! Your keys might likewise have left the face of the Earth because yous can't run across a unmarried trace of them anywhere.

Scientists accept long studied retentiveness and how it's stored in our brains. Many factors influence our memory, similar our age, our interest and familiarity with the topic and how complex the matter at hand is. Still, remembering where yous've put your keys shouldn't be that hard, correct?

Yet, this keeps happening more often than we call back. On average, people misplace about nine items a day and spend over 15 minutes searching for them (keys beingness one of the most commonly lost items). That can easily turn into a mount of wasted time just searching for lost things. In psychology, interference theory offers some explanation equally to why this might be happening. Memories are transient and alter as time passes. If we have two or three similar memories that are close to each other, they tin can interfere with 1 another and our memory of what has happened can be impaired. In the case of your keys, if you lot don't accept a designated spot in the house for storing them, you can go on going between the different places you lot think you concluding saw them without whatsoever certainty that yous're right.

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

Six easy steps you can take to find your lost keys

Choose a dedicated spot

It might sound similar an obvious one, but you'd be surprised how many people either don't accept one or don't apply the one they have. This is, by far, the biggest cause for losing keys and spending countless hours searching for them. That not merely causes frustration, just it can besides lead to a disruption to your piece of work and individual life if yous're ofttimes late at the office or for meeting with friends. Then, take a moment and decide what'southward the all-time spot in the house where y'all'll be storing your keys from now on. Make sure the place is hands accessible so that you take the incentive to use information technology and that y'all tin can easily grab the keys if you're in a blitz. A small container on your shoe chiffonier or a "cardinal slot" on your glaze rack can be an ideal place for this.

Utilize a keychain to group them

Now that yous take a dedicated place for your keys, make sure you grouping them together then that you lot 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 notice, but you'd too be less probable to lose them every bit they'll brand more noise if they accidentally fall off your possession. A keychain is great every bit you tin also attach the keys to the within of your purse so that you're confident they are safely stored at all times while you go about your mean solar day.

spotypal keys

Make copies

While having all your keys in the same identify is convenient, it's also a recipe for disaster if you don't accept a fill-in program. Always make at least one more copy of your keys in instance y'all lose the originals. A hidden identify in your car is a great spot for storing your extra copies as it can assist yous avoid getting locked out of your house (but make sure yous don't accept 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 oftentimes or use an empty shelf in your wardrobe where you know y'all can ever find them.

Use memory techniques

There are many different mental tricks you tin can employ to meliorate your memory, simply a very well-known one is chosen the memory palace. With this technique you create a mental image of a physical infinite, say your home, and try to associate things y'all 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 tin can also utilise information technology to call back where yous've put your keys. Then, take a moment and visualize your home. The more details you can add to information technology the more impactful and successful the exercise would be.

spotypal memory techniques

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 chiffonier. The more surreal the vision, the more memorable information technology volition be. Try this a few times. This should help make information technology easier for you to always use the designated spot for storing your keys and, hopefully, make it easier to find them later on.

Backtrack your steps

You know how you sometimes go into the kitchen and yous forget why you went there? And so you backtrack your steps to the dining room where you starting time got the idea to go into the kitchen and there you lot run across your plate and pocketknife and realize you are missing a fork? That's the power of mental cues. In the instance of your lost keys, yous tin try going back through the steps y'all took until the concluding fourth dimension you remember having your keys. Try thinking of the social club in which things happened. Possibly you came through the door and realized you've left the hob in the kitchen and you hurried to turn it off. Then your phone rang and your colleague asked you lot to open up your laptop and transport them that last presentation you'd been working on. Then you lot quickly jumped in the shower before you got ready for dinner. All these actions tin can offering a cue as to where your keys might exist. Make sure you really go through the different rooms as you try to remember because something in the surround might requite you a clue as to where y'all might have left your keys.

Use the help of engineering

All these steps are great when it comes to storing and finding your keys, all the same, they all require mental endeavor from you lot for them to work. With the fast-paced, busy lives we lead this can be yet another pace on our long to-do list every solar day. Luckily, today nosotros tin use the help of technology to assistance u.s.a. streamline our lives, so that we can employ our mental energy on other things that are more important to us. Spotypal, for example, is a bluetooth device that can help you find your near commonly used items with a few clicks of a push. Y'all merely pair your keys with your phone and then adhere Spotypal to your keychain. Next time you're looking for your keys, you can "telephone call" your keys and the device will alert y'all of their location. Spotypal comes with a free app which is a convenient way to shop and manage all your device pairings.

spotypal

Conclusion

Losing keys is ane of the nearly common, yet nigh frustrating things in the world. It has happened to all of u.s. and it will probably keep happening every bit our lives become busier and busier. Still, with a little bit of proactiveness on your stop, y'all tin can remove this problem from your life so that you save your energy for other, more important things that truly affair to you. If you'd like to learn more well-nigh Spotypal and how it works, delight give u.s.a. a telephone call and one of our team members can help you become started.