Backtracking is the best way to find something you lost. I applied this technique repeatedly as our kids grew up, and over the years successfully found everything from books to backpacks.
Backtracking is simple. Trace your steps. Remember where you were. Work backwards from you most recent spot to find something you lost.
In today’s world, there’s a need with some degree of frequency to apply the backtracking tactic to finding our smart phones, wallets, car keys or reading glasses. Our phones seem to enjoy falling out of our pockets and go find places to rest that we don’t usually consider. We break routine, so backtracking becomes more important to lessening your anxiety during the moment you reach in your pocket and get that sinking feeling that you have no idea where your phone is.
After finishing a recent round of golf, I had that heart-jolting sensation of not being able to find my wallet in the pocket of my golf bag that I was 100 PERCENT SURE it was where I’d stored it. I rummaged and dug. I zipped open every receptacle in the bag. I went back to my car and checked on the seats and under them. Nada.
Went back to the golf back. Dug my hand in the pocket I KNEW I’d put it in by using the backtracking technique and WALA, there was a hole. I stuffed my arm through it to the bottom of the golf bag, KNOWING the wallet had to be at the bottom of the clubs. Nothing. My heart twinged a bit more – that cold sweat thing starting, as you wonder whether your wallet is laying back somewhere on an 18-hole golf course. Not a good thing.
I stuck with it though, using logic and tenacity. I thought it through. Backtracked. Had to be in there. Which meant asking, “Where was it lodged?” Aha. How about it fell through the hole, went to the bottom of the bag, but somehow slid up into the middle of the bag as I moved the clubs? Certainly.
I stuck my arm into the middle of the golf shafts, and there it was, just as suspected. Joy. Relief. Life returning to normal.
It’s good to remember the backtracking technique, as a good friend of mine can attest. As he puts it, “It is so strange how devices seem to try and escape and hide from us.”
He had a similar experience to mine, but with his cell phone. This occurred a few weeks back. Somehow it became lodged between the middle arm rest and the passenger side of the car seat (a well-known hiding place that cell phones deviously like to slide into).
He tore through the house, checking everywhere, with his wife calling him so they could identify its location by sound. He had previously checked his car visually, but it was not until his wife called him that he figured out its location.
Even then, he could hear the ringing, but not easily figure out it was coming from the car in the garage. Talk about a huge sigh of relief!
Remember those places to look where you place things: the bathroom counter; your office desk in the basement; the easy chair where you nap; the window shelf next to your TV chair; the valet box on your kitchen counter; the phone holder in your car.
And, of course, don’t forget that dastardly slot between the driver’s car seat and the cupholder in the front. Keep on backtracking on you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Backtracking is simple. Trace your steps. Remember where you were. Work backwards from you most recent spot to find something you lost.
In today’s world, there’s a need with some degree of frequency to apply the backtracking tactic to finding our smart phones, wallets, car keys or reading glasses. Our phones seem to enjoy falling out of our pockets and go find places to rest that we don’t usually consider. We break routine, so backtracking becomes more important to lessening your anxiety during the moment you reach in your pocket and get that sinking feeling that you have no idea where your phone is.
After finishing a recent round of golf, I had that heart-jolting sensation of not being able to find my wallet in the pocket of my golf bag that I was 100 PERCENT SURE it was where I’d stored it. I rummaged and dug. I zipped open every receptacle in the bag. I went back to my car and checked on the seats and under them. Nada.
Went back to the golf back. Dug my hand in the pocket I KNEW I’d put it in by using the backtracking technique and WALA, there was a hole. I stuffed my arm through it to the bottom of the golf bag, KNOWING the wallet had to be at the bottom of the clubs. Nothing. My heart twinged a bit more – that cold sweat thing starting, as you wonder whether your wallet is laying back somewhere on an 18-hole golf course. Not a good thing.
I stuck with it though, using logic and tenacity. I thought it through. Backtracked. Had to be in there. Which meant asking, “Where was it lodged?” Aha. How about it fell through the hole, went to the bottom of the bag, but somehow slid up into the middle of the bag as I moved the clubs? Certainly.
I stuck my arm into the middle of the golf shafts, and there it was, just as suspected. Joy. Relief. Life returning to normal.
It’s good to remember the backtracking technique, as a good friend of mine can attest. As he puts it, “It is so strange how devices seem to try and escape and hide from us.”
He had a similar experience to mine, but with his cell phone. This occurred a few weeks back. Somehow it became lodged between the middle arm rest and the passenger side of the car seat (a well-known hiding place that cell phones deviously like to slide into).
He tore through the house, checking everywhere, with his wife calling him so they could identify its location by sound. He had previously checked his car visually, but it was not until his wife called him that he figured out its location.
Even then, he could hear the ringing, but not easily figure out it was coming from the car in the garage. Talk about a huge sigh of relief!
Remember those places to look where you place things: the bathroom counter; your office desk in the basement; the easy chair where you nap; the window shelf next to your TV chair; the valet box on your kitchen counter; the phone holder in your car.
And, of course, don’t forget that dastardly slot between the driver’s car seat and the cupholder in the front. Keep on backtracking on you’ll find what you’re looking for.