Find yourself misplacing things? This UX/UI design principle can help.

A law of good UX/UI design is to put important things in the corners.

There are lots of reasons for this. It molds digital interface design to fit our human cognitive-physical apparatus in a helpful way. It fits the ways our brain works, plugging into observed human patterns like the Serial Position Effect, Fitts' Law, and the Law of Magic Pixels.

Putting things in the corners does a lot of good for someone trying to get something done.

• The corners are the most reliable landmarks on our screen - our digital North Star in four parts. You always know exactly where they are and how to get there.

• It's easy to click on because you can't overshoot it. Your cursor will simply stop once you've hit the corner. You don't have to go hunting to convert on your click.

• It's now a universal standard, repeated throughout decades of personal computing: the corners are reserved for very important things - such as the kill switch on your open program, or the search function in your computer, or your account/profile information. You expect important things to be in the corners, and they are. This makes things easier to find and do in your digital spaces.

But did you know this principle can help in your real-life, atom-bound meatspace too?

Have you ever put something down at home and then forgotten where you've put it almost immediately? Resulting in a tragic game of "ouroboros hide and seek" where, like a basic American Gray Squirrel (whose brain is the size of a shelled hazelnut - Gemini's words, not mine), you strugglebus around desperately looking for something you have unwittingly hidden from yourself?

This can help with that.

It happens. You're moving fast, doing 3 things at once, picking things up, putting them down. Moving, moving, moving! These two screws you grabbed to install the new picture frame. That pair of batteries you dug out for the new doodad. The tape measure you need for the bathroom reno project.

It's not like you're wrong to put it down, either. Lacking more than two hands to hold things, you inevitably have to drop little things so you can pick up those other things you need right now. Trouble is, fifteen seconds later, poof! - the thing you were first holding has magically vanished from thin air, never to be found again. (Until you finally find it the following Thursday while looking for that other thing.)

This is rough, right? Especially if you or your spouse have ADHD, which cranks this up to 11. In that case, you're surely familiar with the urge to punt the next person who tells you "don't put it down, put it away" over the broad side of the Verrazzano Bridge.

Worry not, friend. For a light, easy, fast way to help, use this principle! Put things in the corners. It works. It won't solve your problems overnight but it'll make things a little better.

When you're about to drop something, instead of just putting it down any-old-where, just nudge yourself a few feet over and instead put it on the nearest corner. Takes next to zero effort and time, and helps a bunch. Doesn't matter where you are, this works for all types of surfaces, including:

• The corner of a table

• The corner of a counter

• The corner of a nightstand

• The corner / armrest of a sofa

• The corner of your workbench

• The corner of your large, floorstanding speaker

• The corner of your bookshelf

• The corner of your bed

• In a giant warehouse with no furniture? Put it on the corner of a 2x4 laying on the ground. Put it on top of that stool protruding into the open space. Put it on the edge of a windowsill that's catching light. Just put it on the corner of something, rather than in the middle.

I'm gonna bet that any surface you can put things down on has a corner, maybe even four. Use them! They might just save you a ton of time and hassle, as they've done for me.

This little tiny shift works for me and I hope it can work for you too.

Oh, and if you know about other digital-world tricks that can help us in the real world, please do share. I've been waiting on an "undo" button in real life for years...