I support the idea of deciding on places to keep things. I have several small objects I need to keep with me (wallet, phone, iPod, appointment book) and I avoid losing them by always putting them in the same pockets. This also works for some members of my family who have your same problem.
This is what I do.
Also, don't be afraid to be stubborn and set in your ways. It really helps to own only one of something (one purse/backpack/tote, for instance) and always use it. Have a spot where you use your laptop and always use it there. Refuse to buy expensive and fragile things most of the time, and if you do buy something fragile get a case for it and a special routine for protecting it. If you're frequently losing/breaking things, that means you're not used to devoting mental energy to your possessions; so you should reduce the amount you need to think about them.
Lately I've been identifying a lot of things about myself that need improvement and thinking about ways to fix them. This post is intended to A) talk about some overall strategies for self-improvement/goal-focusing, and B) if anyone's having similar problems, or wants to talk about additional problems they face, discuss specific strategies for dealing with those problems.
Those issues I'm facing include but are not limited to:
Of those things, three of them are things that require me to actively dedicate more time (finding an apartment, getting exercise, social life), and the others mostly consist of NOT doing things (eating cheese, making bad jokes, losing things, getting distracted by the internet), unless I can find some proactive thing to make it easier to not do them.
I *feel* like I have enough time that I should be able to address all of them at once. But looking at the whole list at once is intimidating. And when it comes to the "not doing bad thing X" items, remembering and following up on all of them is difficult. The worst one is "don't lose things." There's no particular recurring theme in how I lose stuff, or they type of stuff I Iose. I'm more careful with my wallet and computer now, but spending my entire life being super attentive and careful about *everything* seems way too stressful and impractical.
I guess my main question is: when faced with a list of things that don't necessarily require separate time to accomplish, how many does it make sense to attempt at once? Just one? All of them? I know you're not supposed to quit drinking and smoking at the same time because you'll probably accomplish neither, but I'm not sure if the same principle applies here.
There probably isn't a universal answer to this, but knowing what other people have tried and accomplished would be helpful.
Later on I'm going to discuss some of the problems in more detail (I know that the brief blurbs are lacking a lot of information necessary for any kind of informed response, but a gigantic post that about my own problems seemed... not exactly narcissistic... but not appropriate as an initial post for some reason)