Forgetfulness — a common mishap, usually taken for granted. I used to be horrible at remembering things. I’d wake up in the morning, with my head jammed with a list of tasks for the day. But eventually, I’d be left with “What am I supposed to do next?” And as the clock would strike the midnight hour, I would recall “Oh! I just forgot a couple of deliverables set for the day!”
Little details like tasks, appointments and ideas often slipped my mind. It was not just limited to office agenda. I once even forgot to shop! Yes! You must be wondering how anyone can forget to get their favourite things from the market. But once you are hit by “forgetfulness”, there is no cure for it, except for being self-alert. All I could remember was my birthday and Christmas! I worked on my forgetfulness, and found some handy tricks to stop it from happening again.
Here are five of the best tricks to make your life a bit more easier, to cope up with the daily rush and meet up every target you have set for the day without spending on a counsellor.
- Collect and capture: I would suggest you to carry your little friend — a notepad — wherever you go, as the best way to remember things is by not relying on your brain. As a freelance writer, I often come up with blogging ideas and tips at odd places and timing. As I’d go back to my study, I’d mess up all of these ideas. So, I kickstarted this trick. From converging ideas to listing down daily agenda, my notepad keeps them safe, and I can turn back to them any time I wish to.
- Manage your stress: Improper stress management is a key factor that often drives the disaster that is forgetfulness. One of the golden techniques of learning and memory is to surround yourself with memory boosters and stress relievers. That’s why as children, our textbooks used to be so jolly and colourful. Every colorful object around us inspires and boosts our memory. I planted the same idea to cope up with my forgetfulness. Arranging your study with colourful sticky notes with ideas written on them or the next task detailed on them can make things much more easy-to-go.
- Organise technology: Technology is the solution to most of our problems. Even keeping forgetfulness in check is just a click away. Take out the time to get a calendar, to-do list and filing system so that you don’t have to burden your memory. I’ve been able to remember far more things ever since I combined technology and the habit of organising. You can try scheduling alarms or reminders to avoid hitting targets at your workplace. This can be useful when you don’t need to remember things in a particular order and don’t want to forget one from a broken link. I often use the tool to never miss birthdays of friends and family. Isn’t the feature interesting and hastle-free?
- Say goodbye to procrastination: The idea of putting things back to your pending bucket is one of the key factors why the youth suffers from forgetfulness. It is more likely that a procrastinated task will be overloaded by fresh deliverables, and result in forgetting about the former one. This can not only lead to overlooking minute details of a task, but can even end up failing us at achieving our targets within a stipulated time. I identified this issue and started this technique to finish objectives at a go, instead of procrastinating and loading former tasks with fresh ones. You too can try this, and the results can be instantly!
- Socialise regularly: This might be a heartbreaking trick for introverts, but it’s a golden secret to swipe away forgetfulness. When you are having difficulty recalling a particular word or fact, you can cue yourself (or others around you) by giving related details or “talking around” the word, name or fact. Discussing tasks and objectives with people who share same interests helps memorise unfamiliar and unusual or relatively difficult concepts. I practiced this for a week and the results were almost magical. I realised that socialising regulary, discussing your tasks and how we can accomplish them or simply finding out better ways to get things done are some tricks to win over forgetfulness.
Why These Tricks Work
Memory works better through techniques such as writing or being around things that release serotonin, or the happy hormone, which helps concentrate and boost memory. On the other hand, physical tricks automatically trigger your associations and bring up what you need to remember. Avoiding procrastination and socialisation work well because your memory can retain images of fresh tasks that have been talked about for a longer time and help you connect well with the subject.
Do let me know which one of the following work best for you, along with some more tricks that you think can help boost memory.