Further, if you drop something small, like a screw, set the flashlight on the floor. This will make all the small things cast long shadows and stand out way more.

Same, I found my flashlight that way

I heard that, at least in countries where we read left to right, we also look for things left to right. And if you reverse this and look from right to left that you're more likely to notice something you otherwise missed. So I do that. But I have no data to confirm if it works...

You know the pop culture reference we use for someone who has misplaced their cellphone, "have you tried calling it?"

This will sound absolutely silly, but one day a friend was looking for some trinket which wasn't a phone, and playfully I asked, "Have you tried calling it?"

They doubled down and started actually calling it, "Trinket.... trinket, where are you?"

And wouldn't you know it, within minutes they found it, and so far this has worked about 99.9% of the time.

So like using a flashlight focuses your eyes, having someone call it out loud kind of quiets the mind, too. It's wild.

I use my hands to kind of do the same thing. It's probably the behaviour they modeled Monk's "hand thing" after. It still helps even if I'm searching using my memory and spatial awareness to recall and search through something I am not currently looking at. Somehow, narrowing the scope physically with my hands helps. It's probably a muscle memory or proprioception thing.

For example, if I want to find something to eat in the fridge. I generally won't be able to think of anything by just opening the fridge and looking through it. Unless there is something super obvious like a leftover pizza box or something else impossible to miss like that. Just trying to search by looking at each shelf only increases the odds of finding something by like 5%. But when I use my hand and slowly move it down the shelves, I can somehow think more clearly about what is on each shelf than I could without using my hand. And, as I mentioned, it also works even if I am no longer looking in the fridge. I can do it with the door closed and still more clearly recall what was on each shelf.

It also helps when scanning through my whole house looking for something, with and without currently having eyes on it. Like scanning through the whole house room by room while still sitting at my computer, I do a much better job if I am pointing my hand at the place I am thinking about as I scan.

I should probably mention I am Autistic, my spatial awareness and proprioception are two areas I have seemed to benefit. But it's very easy to get confused or distracted if I have too much information at once. So that is mostly what is going on. I can't just imagine that I am pointing at something in my imagination to gain the benefit, I have to be literally, physically pointing. Although I can translocate, like not be at my house or fridge and still scan my house or fridge by pointing relatively where each thing would be if they were there.

It's not limited in scope as far as I can tell. Though it is kind of limited in resolution. The bigger the area I am scanning, the less detail I can recall about it when I am not there, or "looking through walls". But when I am there, I can go as fine grained as the search demands, just takes longer.

A Coast G20 flashlight is about $10 on Amazon, and has a very tight spotlight circle "inspection" beam. It's my go-to for searching because it makes you focus on a small area.