[egypturnash]

Living in a shotgun house has convinced me this effect is very real. When I have to walk from the front to the back, I have developed the habit of saying what I'm going to do as I walk through each of the five doors I have to pass through; this puts my intent into a different mental pipeline, that's much more resistant to being flushed out when I pass through a door.

If my husband is at home then he tends to get in on the act, leading to conversations like "I should set a timer for five minutes." "You should set a timer for five minutes!" "I'm gonna set a timer for five minutes." "Didja set that timer for five minutes?" "I just set a timer for five minutes!" when I'm crossing from the kitchen to the living room and leaving some water to boil.

[smeej]

Maybe a counter-anecdote? I live in a studio layout house. The only interior door/doorway is to the bathroom. Yet I regularly forget things between my kitchen counter and my desk, or sometimes even between my stove and the counter across from it, despite having generally strong short and long-term recall.

I had chalked it up to the familiarity of the places. I see the same things inside all the time, so one day's moments blend into the previous days' similar moments.

I find a related thing happens in places I visit a lot, like my church, where each time I go, the previous experiences layer on top of it. There just aren't quite enough of them there to crowd out what I'm trying to do this time.

[hnlmorg]

That’s not a counter-anecdote. The linked article describes how this is about psychological barriers which can align with physical barriers but doesn’t have to be. Such as application windows on a computer desktop.

What you’re describing is still a physical barrier but it’s not a literal door way.