I find this is frequently a big problem. Out of all the shortcomings I have, “not remembering” is probably the most disastrous for me.
For most of my life, I had assumed that this was something inherent about me. This led me to develop lots of tricks not for remembering, but for being good at not having to remember. I have thousands of text files stored on my computer’s hard drive that I can search. When I started doing this, I’d never be able to find what I was after because I couldn’t even recall a single keyword that would identify the right file for me. But over time I’ve gotten better at choosing smart ways of phrasing my notes, such that they’re easier to search. Similarly for programming—I carefully document even fairly trivial programs and try to keep a very strict folder hierarchy so that I’ll be able to find what I need when I need. Sometimes I find useful programs that I can’t even remember writing.
I now think that I was at least partially wrong in assuming that my memory cannot be fixed. I am looking forward to reading advice on this topic.
Thanks for the advice. I hadn’t thought of keeping code snippets but I do keep more general notes and it’s definitely a strange-but-pleasing experience to find a detailed solution in a note that I have no memory of writing.
I find this is frequently a big problem. Out of all the shortcomings I have, “not remembering” is probably the most disastrous for me.
For most of my life, I had assumed that this was something inherent about me. This led me to develop lots of tricks not for remembering, but for being good at not having to remember. I have thousands of text files stored on my computer’s hard drive that I can search. When I started doing this, I’d never be able to find what I was after because I couldn’t even recall a single keyword that would identify the right file for me. But over time I’ve gotten better at choosing smart ways of phrasing my notes, such that they’re easier to search. Similarly for programming—I carefully document even fairly trivial programs and try to keep a very strict folder hierarchy so that I’ll be able to find what I need when I need. Sometimes I find useful programs that I can’t even remember writing.
I now think that I was at least partially wrong in assuming that my memory cannot be fixed. I am looking forward to reading advice on this topic.
Thanks for the advice. I hadn’t thought of keeping code snippets but I do keep more general notes and it’s definitely a strange-but-pleasing experience to find a detailed solution in a note that I have no memory of writing.
I’d really like to see a list and discussion of your and others’ “tricks” for not having to rely on memory.