Is your executive function so bad you lose pens, remotes...

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Years ago I remember having tens of pens, now I can't find one. Probably because the room is kind of like in the picture... no, way worse, I can't step anywhere without stepping on something. I've become so depressed lately I've subconsciously littered my entire flat... or my cats pushed everything on the floor, but no, I'm sure it's mostly my own doing...

But really, not finding the TV's remote is so annoying, and this is like the fifth time this happens too... it's switched on the brightest levels, so annoying if I can't have a dark screen, but fine if I'm watching non-PC stuff that isn't all bright.

What's funny is that I remember feeling so depressed when I was a child upon seeing a messy kitchen table (which I wasn't the cause of)... and yet, now, my entire flat is like that.

Used to be that the kitchen and 'living' room were messier than my bedroom and they are when I manage to clean my room until a week later it's in its default state... currently, empty pizza boxes everywhere, empty plastic bottles everywhere, a few alcoholic ones due to severe stress recently, but they're spirits, so didn't need to buy tens of them, about five litres in total. Fast food boxes... crisps packets... soy milk empty bottles (since I can never figure out if they're recycled or thrown away)... papers of all sorts, of course, and tissues. In front of my bed, a mostly empty computer box and plastic bags galore.

You've never seen your mate well and truly pissed off until you've lost the fourth and last set of house & car keys.

My executive functioning has always been poor but I managed to invent some routines to make it better.
If I remove anything from myself, I put it in very special places. If I'm not at home, I put everything into my backpack so I don't forget to take it with me. My keys are on one big ring, always in upper right pocket of my trousers. My phone is in the lower right pocket. Earplugs and lip balm in upper left pocket.
But I do lose pens because my family borrow them all the time and leave them outside my special places

Losing small objects is the least of my executive functioning problems.

Lost an umbrella a couple of days ago. My wife bought me a new one and I lost it the same day. She was not pleased.

More serious is when I forget to do important tasks, to pay bills, where I'm supposed to be at a given time, where I'm going, how to get back home...

Seconded!

As for losing little things - yes, all the time. As soon as I need my hands for some other task, I simply put down whatever is currently in my hands without noticing myself doing it at all. It doesn't help that almost all small objects are "stim toys" to me; it's not unusual that I can't find what I'm looking for because I'm fiddling with it to relieve my anxiety at not being able to find it!

I also have the same kind of "junk blindness". When my mind is focused on anything else, I just don't notice that I'm stepping over and around things, etc. The piles of junk very quickly become part of my "normal" environment, as if they are just a natural feature of the world which was always there. When I do notice it, I often just end up procrastinating for hours about how I should begin sorting it out; planning all sorts of strategies that I then end up with no time "right now" to get started on. So the plan gets deferred until "later", which never comes because, by then, my mind is focused on something else again, and I don't see the problem any more. Repeat ad infinitim.

Always losing things. My saving grace is hiring a housekeeper to clean up after me weekly. Among other things, I clean up in advance of her arrival. But when I haven't, she is very understanding.

I rarely lose things as opposed to sometimes not remembering where I've put them. My worst EF problems are with organising and planning.

I lose things a lot. I curb this by having strict systems for where things go. My keys belong in a particular pocket in my purse. If they need to leave my hand, they go in that pocket. If I need them, I reach in that pocket. If I don't feel them, I have a problem. Occasionally they accidentally end up in a different pocket. I have a minor freakout, then I check my other pockets and probably find it and scold myself never to do that again. If I can't find it in the other pockets then the freakout intensifies. There are two or three other locations around my house that they sometimes end up, but if it's not in one of those then I have a Big Problem and am probably crying. This rarely happens because I'm usually pretty good at remembering to put important things in their place.

Things that don't have places are functionally always lost. Most things have places, even if those places are "this pile over over here." A lot of things are in "this pile over here."

^ That's very much how I deal with the important stuff like my wallet, keys, etc. - when I'm buying new clothes or a new rucksack, I always check that they have pockets that match my system.

I find it incredulous that I can lose something without getting out of my chair , I must have poltergeists

I hate them the most when I've turned my room upside-down looking for something, only to find that they've sneakily put it back in the place that I thought it was to begin with, and which I'm sure I've already checked fifty times! They're definitely trying to gaslight me by changing the type and colour of my lighter every time I rummage for it to light a fag!

Ah! You have the lighter poltergeists as well , and gaslighting is exactly what they do

At my previous place,which was a 2 bedroom place, and therefore bigger, I lived in what was basically a mess. Now I have my stepdaughter to make sure I keep relatively tidy, and someone who comes in twice a week to clean. I still have piles of paper but they are contained to a smaller area in the lounge.

I have routines to keep myself from losing things. I do lose my smartphone in my house often though but I use the google tracking to find it or I just ring the phone if I left the ringer on. I do misplace papers all the time though, can't seem to organize myself in that area. My executive functioning is terrible though.

One minute I'm using something. The next minute it disappears.

I lose things but I believe that's just cuz I'm absentminded maybe due to my ADD. I don't think I have bad executive function problems cuz I didn't really have a problem in a workplace setting.