Why You Lose Your Keys
It's not forgetting. It's never remembering.
You didn't forget where your keys are. Either your brain never encoded the moment, or that memory is buried under dozens of nearly identical ones. Encoding requires attention, which is why keys go missing when your mind is on your phone or tomorrow's meeting. And because you've set them down in the same few spots hundreds of times, each new memory competes with the backlog, a process called interference. The memory isn't lost. It was either never made, or it's one of many.
In real life...
Give yourself a designated "landing spot" for items you frequently lose: a hook, a bowl, a specific pocket. By turning the action into a habit, you bypass the need for conscious attention. When your motor system always does the same thing, you'll always know where to look.