ADHD

The best thing I did for myself is to make a place for all important things like my keys, watch, medicine, moisturiser etc. if I catch myself putting it down somewhere that isn’t the right place then I make the effort to put it in the right spot. For example: my keys, they have a hook by my door and one pocket they live in. They are never anywhere but those two places or in my hand and if I ever go to put them down and think to myself “Ill remember to move them later” I say to myself “of course you won’t remember, move them now”.

It’s helped massively and now I’m used to it it’s not hard to do. Of course I don’t always catch myself and do lose stuff but it happens less now.

Also trying to keep on top of clutter on sides, that way it’s easier to spot the thing that I’ve put down. Don’t get me wrong I have piles and piles of clutter that I will about once a year go through and have a clear out but I keep that stuff on shelves etc, not somewhere I would put down my phone for example

The best way to combat this is everything has a spot. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient it feels, everything has a spot. The spot can move over time but it still has a spot. It does t matter how messy or unorganized it is, it still has a spot.
I suffer from this a lot, but drilling it into myself that everything has a spot has been the best way to fight it.

I just lost the fork I was stirring pasta with. I'm eating it with a different fork now. I didn't leave the room, I don't have a fucking clue where fork #1 went

Try the soulbound spell until the devs fix the lag spikes and inventory bugs.

Oh shit, wrong sub.

Get rid of the clutter, which means you periodically get a trashbag and throw out the stuff you don't need, or donate it if you think someone else will actually be able to use it.

Those tennis shoes you thought you might use for yard work 3 pairs ago? Toss them, no one is going to use them, not even you.

The leftover craft supplies from the time you thought painting would be a relaxing hobby 5 years ago, donate it.

It all goes out the door and into the dumpster or donation facility that day, no hanging on to piles to take another day.

Start small with important things, like your keys and your phone, and create a contextual place for them. In the home they are always in the same place. The location should be convenient a table or a shelf is great. The important part is that you never set them down anywhere else.

When you are out, they are on your person but always in the same place. Never set your phone or keys down while you are outside of your home. They are in your hand or in your pocket. There are no other places to put them.

My phone is always either in my pocket, on the arm of my big chair, or on my desk on or next to the charger. I try to never put it down anywhere else. My phone is almost never lost. My keys are similar. They are either in my hand, in a keyhole, or in my pocket. I never put them anywhere else and I refuse to put them down anywhere but my pocket.

Get in the habit of refusing to put important things down unless you can put them away properly and they will get harder to lose track of. Once those habits are strong, slowly expand to more things having a specific place in your world and you will find that things go missing less often.

Why is their a hammer in the fridge?

I just want to stop things from being imperceivable while in my hand or after just being put in my pocket.

The other day I frantically looked for my car keys while they were sticking out of the pocket of my clean pants I had just put on. I could have looked down and seen them, but instead I tore my room apart looking for them because they weren't in the same spot I always store them.

Pockets, or never let it go. Thus is the only way for me.

how amenable are you to meditation

no

Hasn’t vaping been recently associated with memory loss? I know it might be hard, but maybe cut back on that and see if it improves. If it doesn’t it might be environmental like mold, sleep disturbances (like apnea), carbon monoxide, etc. I’d start by changing things in your environment one by one and see if it helps.

Honestly just get a vape that is confortable to carry around in your pocket and has a good weight distibution so you can use it to fidget, I also vape and i had to design and 3d print one because it was by far my most commonly misplaced item. but since I made my vaporflask inspired squonk dna75c I just have it on my all the time and if I change location its either in my pocket or I'm fighting with it unconsiosly

I was hoping to get meds after my neuro psych testing to help with this.

*crickets*

I am going to take a different tack here that might not be popular, there likely isn't a way you can stop this tendency from meaningfully impacting your life in a stressful way.

You can, as you have mentioned, notice the emotional hardship that happens from experiencing this cycle over and over again. The grief and exhaustion that transmutes into anger in the moment you realize you can't find something and finding it is going to be another wild goose chase can really hurt you over time, it is important to validate those emotions and give them their own space so that they don't become intertwined with your basic mental cycle of trying to find things.

Wait. I always thought my inability to discern objects within clutter was part of the sensory processing filters struggling within autism.

There is many neordodivergent overlap but now i am very curious how common this is within non autistic adhd

Check behind your ears. If not there, check elsewhere.

Stop doing whatever doing with the thing but have a place for things you set down that doesn't change or have a place per context (home, work, "out"). Be consistent the first couple weeks and it will become automatic

Do you meditate? If not, start. Do you do a lot of screen-based entertainment? If so, cut back.

It could be that your issue is an innate genetic thing… but these are obvious and proven ways to improve your mental health and performance, and worth trying. Though meditation is difficult and video games are fun, so these aren’t particularly appealing, I know.