How to get over “Did I lock the door?” syndrome

I am person who always asks myself  “Did I lock the house door?”,  And I do ask that question when I have almost reached office. I don’t have a bad memory or I am not a “forget it all after a min person”. Infact I have a fantastic memory of things. This problem has been haunting me for a very long time. My wife used to always have a angry face after we had get down from the car. Because after we have walked for about 20 yards I would run back to the car to check if I had locked the car, you see this problem exists for all locked objects. This happens everyday all round the year. Now a days I don’t have the problem ! I did not get the solution from any doctor or any book that that talks about my inner mind. It was a practical advice given by my aunt…..

When I told her that I had this problem, she smiled and said its very very easy to get around this. I was stunned. The solution she gave me was simple. After I had locked the door, should hold the lock and look at it for 5 sec and say to myself   “I have locked the door”.

Believe me it works like a charm. The reason why it works is my aunt goes to explain, that your mind always thinks twice of important things that we do on our daily life and raises doubts after sometime. The only way to stop is it by looking at it, holding it and telling yourself that its ok and its done.

This holds good for all the things that you generally doubt like, did I turn off the AC?, did I turn off the lights in the house when I left?. Just look at it for 5 sec, hold it tell yourself its done. You will not look back.

Image credit [Håkan Dahlström]