Suggestions before reading anyone else’s comments:
Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Lock the door. Write on the paper “I just locked the front door.” Put it in your suitcase. (Rationale: It seems like you need to do something, and you probably aren’t going to trust your own memory. So do something really foolproof and simple. It takes less time and trouble than calling a friend later. If this is part of some more general OCD problem, consider therapy—but that won’t help you right now.)
Tell the friend “That sounds really interesting. Hold on a second while I make sure I don’t forget it.” Get out the phone and do the Google search (or enter the name into your favourite note-taking app). Leave the browser tab open for later reference, or bookmark it, or something. If your friend thinks that’s rude, find better friends. (Rationale: It really isn’t rude; it doesn’t take long, and your friend should be flattered that something he said was so interesting to you. Just do it.)
If possible: Put something under the front edge of the fridge so that gravity closes it for you. (Rationale: removing problems is better than solving them.) OR: tie something ridiculous-looking to the fridge handle, and every time it reminds you to close the door replace it with a different ridiculous-looking thing. (Rationale: You want something dramatic and hard to miss. You want to make yourself take memorable action to form the right habits.)
(a) Focus on remembering as much of the early part as you robustly can, then when you get there ask a local for directions again. (Rationale: Asking a local is little trouble and a good habit to have. No harm doing it twice and saving yourself mental load.) (b) Bring up the map on your car’s GPS and get the local to point out where the place is. Then get the GPS to take you there. (Rationale: It seems like if you have a usable GPS then asking for directions rather than locations is terribly 20th-century.)
Swallow your pride and use the note cards. OR: Rehearse enough times that you know you won’t get lost. That will make the talk better anyway. OR, BETTER STILL: Do both. (You probably won’t actually need the note cards, but having them there will help your confidence.) (Rationale: Your memory is probably fine for this, but confidence and fluency are really important, so optimize for those.)
Depends on how good your memory for these things is, but I’d suggest: Try to do it from memory every time, and pull the thing out of your wallet if you fail. (Rationale: Making the effort will reduce the time before you have it memorized. Personally I’d just memorize the damn thing, but I have the good fortune to find it easy to memorize 12-digit strings of digits.)
Allocate a few minutes every evening, shortly before bed, for thinking of these things and writing them down. (Rationale: If your brain is filling with work-related things then you haven’t actually succeeded in maintaining that boundary. Better to have an explicit, contained boundary violation.) This may or may not solve the problem. If it doesn’t, either use the phone—with a voice-note app for minimal invasiveness if you’re sleeping on your own, or something textual if you have a partner—or just resign yourself to forgetting some of those ideas. It depends on how important they really are and how many you forget.
It’s not clear here whether the focus is remembering stuff you already knew beforehand, or remembering things you learn at the party. For the latter, I fear there really isn’t much you can do without looking weird. (If you don’t mind looking weird, take notes after meeting each important person. You may be able to step outside to do it, or go to the bathroom and do it there.) For the former, write it all down and test yourself. Maybe make up some silly mnemonics. (Rationale: Er, not much to say here. There may well be better approaches.)
Do it a bit at a time. Plot your progress against time so you can see you’re on course and really do have time to cram everything into your brain before the exam (if you do). (Rationale: Overcome the fear as quickly as possible, in a way that will help take appropriate action if it turns out to be justified.) Test yourself frequently; this is exactly the sort of thing for which spaced repetition systems like Anki will help. (Rationale: This is known to work.) Remind yourself that thousands of people, ordinary baseline H. sapiens with no magical powers, pass the exam every year, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be one of them. (Rationale: Again, get over the fear.)
Reflections after reading other people’s comments:
There seems to be a good general level of agreement, which is either reassuring or disappointing.
MrMind has a similar proposal using your phone rather than paper. May be more or less effort. Has the advantage that it’s maybe harder to lose. I like his idea. (I don’t actually have a smartphone, which may be one reason why I didn’t think of his approach.) Emile’s deliberately-silly proposal is nice but seems less reliable. Likewise for somertva’s idea of associating the memory of locking the door with whatever worries you about not having locked it. (I don’t see how it would work if it’s just the idea of not having locked it that worries you.)
hyporational goes further and suggests a noise-making device on the handle. I like this.
MrMind and hyporational both suggest more forcefully than me that you should just accept that you will forget some work things by maintaining that boundary. They may be right, but I still suspect that by compromising a little you may actually reduce the amount of stress.
Suggestions before reading anyone else’s comments:
Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Lock the door. Write on the paper “I just locked the front door.” Put it in your suitcase. (Rationale: It seems like you need to do something, and you probably aren’t going to trust your own memory. So do something really foolproof and simple. It takes less time and trouble than calling a friend later. If this is part of some more general OCD problem, consider therapy—but that won’t help you right now.)
Tell the friend “That sounds really interesting. Hold on a second while I make sure I don’t forget it.” Get out the phone and do the Google search (or enter the name into your favourite note-taking app). Leave the browser tab open for later reference, or bookmark it, or something. If your friend thinks that’s rude, find better friends. (Rationale: It really isn’t rude; it doesn’t take long, and your friend should be flattered that something he said was so interesting to you. Just do it.)
If possible: Put something under the front edge of the fridge so that gravity closes it for you. (Rationale: removing problems is better than solving them.) OR: tie something ridiculous-looking to the fridge handle, and every time it reminds you to close the door replace it with a different ridiculous-looking thing. (Rationale: You want something dramatic and hard to miss. You want to make yourself take memorable action to form the right habits.)
(a) Focus on remembering as much of the early part as you robustly can, then when you get there ask a local for directions again. (Rationale: Asking a local is little trouble and a good habit to have. No harm doing it twice and saving yourself mental load.) (b) Bring up the map on your car’s GPS and get the local to point out where the place is. Then get the GPS to take you there. (Rationale: It seems like if you have a usable GPS then asking for directions rather than locations is terribly 20th-century.)
Swallow your pride and use the note cards. OR: Rehearse enough times that you know you won’t get lost. That will make the talk better anyway. OR, BETTER STILL: Do both. (You probably won’t actually need the note cards, but having them there will help your confidence.) (Rationale: Your memory is probably fine for this, but confidence and fluency are really important, so optimize for those.)
Depends on how good your memory for these things is, but I’d suggest: Try to do it from memory every time, and pull the thing out of your wallet if you fail. (Rationale: Making the effort will reduce the time before you have it memorized. Personally I’d just memorize the damn thing, but I have the good fortune to find it easy to memorize 12-digit strings of digits.)
Allocate a few minutes every evening, shortly before bed, for thinking of these things and writing them down. (Rationale: If your brain is filling with work-related things then you haven’t actually succeeded in maintaining that boundary. Better to have an explicit, contained boundary violation.) This may or may not solve the problem. If it doesn’t, either use the phone—with a voice-note app for minimal invasiveness if you’re sleeping on your own, or something textual if you have a partner—or just resign yourself to forgetting some of those ideas. It depends on how important they really are and how many you forget.
It’s not clear here whether the focus is remembering stuff you already knew beforehand, or remembering things you learn at the party. For the latter, I fear there really isn’t much you can do without looking weird. (If you don’t mind looking weird, take notes after meeting each important person. You may be able to step outside to do it, or go to the bathroom and do it there.) For the former, write it all down and test yourself. Maybe make up some silly mnemonics. (Rationale: Er, not much to say here. There may well be better approaches.)
Do it a bit at a time. Plot your progress against time so you can see you’re on course and really do have time to cram everything into your brain before the exam (if you do). (Rationale: Overcome the fear as quickly as possible, in a way that will help take appropriate action if it turns out to be justified.) Test yourself frequently; this is exactly the sort of thing for which spaced repetition systems like Anki will help. (Rationale: This is known to work.) Remind yourself that thousands of people, ordinary baseline H. sapiens with no magical powers, pass the exam every year, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be one of them. (Rationale: Again, get over the fear.)
Reflections after reading other people’s comments:
There seems to be a good general level of agreement, which is either reassuring or disappointing.
MrMind has a similar proposal using your phone rather than paper. May be more or less effort. Has the advantage that it’s maybe harder to lose. I like his idea. (I don’t actually have a smartphone, which may be one reason why I didn’t think of his approach.) Emile’s deliberately-silly proposal is nice but seems less reliable. Likewise for somertva’s idea of associating the memory of locking the door with whatever worries you about not having locked it. (I don’t see how it would work if it’s just the idea of not having locked it that worries you.)
hyporational goes further and suggests a noise-making device on the handle. I like this.
MrMind and hyporational both suggest more forcefully than me that you should just accept that you will forget some work things by maintaining that boundary. They may be right, but I still suspect that by compromising a little you may actually reduce the amount of stress.