Friday Five (memory)

First Friday Five to be posted on the new blog here :-)

1. What piece of information do you keep forgetting?
2. What regular event in your life do you keep forgetting?
3. How are you with remembering the names of people you meet?
4. What kinds of tricks to you have for remembering to do stuff that falls outside your regular routine?
5. If you keep a daily planner, what is it like? If you don’t, why not?

1. Honestly, it varies. Currently, it's our new address. And it's not so much forgetting as it is tranposing. You see, our building number is 140, and our apartment number is 204. With two 0s and 4s, it's easy to get them mixed up, and wind up wanting to say 104 Silly St, #240. Or 204 Silly St, #140... or some other random combination. Always have to think twice to make sure I get it right!

2. My wedding anniversary. And my own birthday! I remember once going to work on another ordinary Tuesday or Wednesday, and getting phone calls and emails throughout the day from friends and family wishing me a happy birthday. I was concentrating on work so much, I'd inevitably be surprised at the next call/email. Good to know at least everyone else remembered and was able to remind me! ;-) I wonder if this "forgetfulness" is because birthdays are no longer spectacular, big-deal events. They really are just another ordinary day for me, no fuss, no glory. Not like when I was younger and looked forward to birthday celebrations full of friends, presents and cake. It was hard NOT to look forward to the festivities (and hence the date) back then!

3. Pretty decent, actually. I never know how to answer the question "do you remember names or faces better". My memory is more associative-- show me a face and I can instantly recollect details about that person (where I met them, what striking thing they said/did, etc...) while the memory of their actual name takes a bit longer to percolate to the surface of my brain-- but it does get there eventually. Conversely, when given a familiar name, it takes a few moments of thinking before memories associated with that name (including the face) come to mind. So I guess the answer to the question is that a person's name is just another aspect of them to remember, no more and no less important than anything else.

4. Easy. I write it down! I have a little notebook that I keep in my backpack for jotting down things I need to remember, including funny license plates for future blogging ;-) At home, we have one of those magnetized pads that we stick on the refrigerator, that gets a lot of use, esp for building up shopping lists. And most of all, I use the computer. At work I set myself tasks using Microsoft Outlook. If a task needs to be done outside of work hours (i.e. when I won't be at my work computer to receive the popup reminder), then I open up Google Notebooks and jot stuff down there.

5. My daily planner is my Outlook Calendar, plain and simple :-) And Outlook Tasks (see #4), which I organize into categories and review daily. I also keep a separate yellow legal pad (the small ones) to jot down tasks I want to accomplish each day. I write them down in the morning, refer back to them during the day, and check the items off as I finish them. This serves two purposes: a) I get done what I need to get done and manage my time better, and b) I have notes on what I've done all week. Every Friday we give our boss weekly one-sentence updates on what we've done. You tell me-- when was the last time you could, on a Friday afternoon, instantly recall what you worked on Monday? I thought so. One glance at my notepad saves me racking my brain for details of what I accomplished.

How about you?