Two hours wasted.

[Eddyde]

Happens to me all the time... Just the other day, I lost track of some rubber bumpers I bought to use as door stops on a home renovation job. Me and 2 guys from the crew looked for over an hour. I gave up and ordered more from McMaster as the cost of looking for them was growing exponentially more than they cost. The replacement arrived the next day, I installed them, 10 minutes later I found the original bag of bumpers...

 

[C-Bag]

I suffer from what it known as optical occlusion.

So it has a name, shoulda known. I have always worked messy and clean when the project is done. I try to keep to just one layer so I have hope of not displacing something and falling prey to OO. I also don’t have stationary workbenches and use two rolling carts as workstations because I can have them at hand like in front of the mill, lathe or wherever and this drastically cuts down on dropping a tool or what I’m working on randomly while retrieving a tool. Knowing the problem and trying to organize accordingly has worked pretty good until this last fail. It is distracting and frustrating when I KNOW it’s in some logical place but this one did seem like magic or gremlins.

 

[woodchucker]

Happens to me all the time... Just the other day, I lost track of some rubber bumpers I bought to use as door stops on a home renovation job. Me and 2 guys from the crew looked for over an hour. I gave up and ordered more from McMaster as the cost of looking for them was growing exponentially more than they cost. The replacement arrived the next day, I installed them, 10 minutes later I found the original bag of bumpers...

that always happens. ALWAYS.. damn.

 

[rwm]

It is remarkable how you can look directly at an object that is not in the orientation you are expecting or you are confused about the color or some other property, and you can completely not recognize it. I guess this should not be surprising but it is!

 

[RaisedByWolves]

So it has a name, shoulda known. I have always worked messy and clean when the project is done. I try to keep to just one layer so I have hope of not displacing something and falling prey to OO. I also don’t have stationary workbenches and use two rolling carts as workstations because I can have them at hand like in front of the mill, lathe or wherever and this drastically cuts down on dropping a tool or what I’m working on randomly while retrieving a tool. Knowing the problem and trying to organize accordingly has worked pretty good until this last fail. It is distracting and frustrating when I KNOW it’s in some logical place but this one did seem like magic or gremlins.

I thought I was losing my mind until I discovered it is an actual thing. Its not easy to look up as it is mental and not a physical problem that a Dr can find. I get past it by visually inventorying (That's a center drill, an endmill, scriber....EDGE FINDER! Found it.) every single thing on the bench, sometimes twice to make sure before moving on looking elsewhere.

It is remarkable how you can look directly at an object that is not in the orientation you are expecting or you are confused about the color or some other property, and you can completely not recognize it. I guess this should not be surprising but it is!

It can be remarkably hard to pick out a shiny object of a certain shape in amongst a group of shiny objects of similar shapes.

I have had the occasion, and have seen others set down a die steel while getting distracted and not beable to find it again.

Imagine a room full of dies with die steels made up of shiny surfaces and black holes.

Then setting a shiny object with black holes down in a sea of shiny objects with black holes.

 

[C-Bag]

I thought I was losing my mind until I discovered it is an actual thing. Its not easy to look up as it is mental and not a physical problem that a Dr can find

We take our pattern recognition for granted as we rely on it all the time to navigate the world. But this very ability has gotten some serious attention as they try to get AI to do it. Whether its driving a car or sorting parts on a conveyor or in the case of a YouTuber that was trying to get his AI to assemble a puzzle with all white pieces. For me this gets seriously schwangle if I’m feeling pressure like a deadline or stress from other things. I also get it when I’m being observed. Pattern recognition is the first to go.

 

[mcostello]

I was changing a set of disc brake shoes. A spring was possibly bad, so I drove into town,8 miles away. Bought a repair kit and installed the spring. Put the remainder away right next to the (2) bags I bought a couple of years before.

 

[Provincial]

I keep a seat of hearing protection muffs near the wood splitter. It seems every time I use the splitter, I walk the 100 feet to the house, only to realize that I'm still wearing the ear muffs!

 

[aluminum]

I spent 2 hours looking for my cotter pins. I remember I pulled them out of one of my organizers and moved them to my machine shop, and didn't remember what I did with them. I had to replace the rollers on my lawn cutting deck on the tractor... Now what did I do with them... well I must have looked in the same spot a few times and didn't see them. I wonder where could they be...
Dumb Sh*t

View attachment 463731

It's interesting how pictures can help or otherwise placing the object in sight by attaching it or having a clear view of it.
For example, see the below photo.

 

[woodchucker]

It's interesting how pictures can help or otherwise placing the object in sight by attaching it or having a clear view of it.
For example, see the below photo.

now that's TOO Organized.. I've seen hints in magazines in many years past about attaching what's in the drawer to the outside using hot melt... Of course we're talking small items.