Lose your car keys? Can’t find your wallet?
Call on Professor Solomon. Solomon–a sometimes bookstore clerk, substitute teacher, magician and actor–is the author of the newly published “How to Find Lost Objects” (Penguin, $6.95).
Calling on his experience maintaining the lost-and-found box at a public high school, Solomon developed a method for finding lost stuff. Here are the steps:
1. Don’t look for it. Though your first inclination might be to ransack your home, don’t start searching until you have an idea where to look.
2. It’s not lost–you are. There are no missing objects. Only unsystematic searchers.
3. Remember the three C’s. Search with comfort, calmness and confidence.
4. It’s where it’s supposed to be. Or at least, it might be. So look there first.
5. Domestic drift. Objects often are left where last used, instead of where they are normally kept.
More Top Picks Best Monitor Light Bars Under 100
6. You’re looking right at it. An agitated mind would allow you to look right at an object and not see it.
7. The camouflage effect. Be sure to check under anything that might be camouflaging your object.
8. Think back. You were there when your object was misplaced, so you have to have some faint memory of what happened.
9. Look once. Look well. Check every place thoroughly once.
10. The Eureka Zone. Objects tend to travel no more than 18 inches from their original location.
11. Tail thyself. Recreate the scene of the crime.
12. It wasn’t you. When all else fails, explore the possibility that your item was misappropriated, not misplaced.