I’m new to being retired and even newer to being single. I find my daily routines are not nearly as routine as they once were. E.g. I normally eat my daily vitamins right after breakfast. I have no problem remembering that; I’ve been doing it for ~15 years now.
But when breakfast is at 6am at home one day, around noon out at a restaurant the next, and I may not eat breakfast at all some days, or I’m away from home from 7am to 8pm, the vitamins get skipped. And forgotten. When I come home the fact they haven’t been eaten yet is utterly out of sight out of mind since their “cue” was so long ago and far away by then.
I have a OneNote page in my phone & PC that amounts to both a categorized shopping list (e.g. groc, pharmacy, target, amazon, hardware) and a [things to do today/soon] list. The instant I think of something I put it in there in the appropriate category. Been doing that for decades now. To me a Post-it is useless since I won’t be where it is when I need to do whatever it tells me to do. My phone OTOH is just about attached to my body.
For things that recur or have a due date rather than “soon / when I get around to it”, I use Outlook tasks. And especially the recurring task feature. Want to remember to e.g. run vinegar through the dishwasher every 6 weeks? Just create a recurring task for that. When it’s due it turns red and then I go do it, either immediately that morning or in the next day or so. It remains red until done. Once I check it off as done a new not-red one appears dated 6 weeks hence. This is also something I’ve been doing for decades.
The sum of these two systems works great. For me. I’ve tried various ways to combine the two systems to just one, but the nature of the requirements just doesn’t quite make either system a good fit for the other’s info. So I’m stuck with both.
I started most of this when I was a crazy busy business owner who was too pulled eight ways to Sunday to remember anything that wasn’t urgent action this very minute. I think that habit will stand me in good stead as I get old and stupid(er).
OTOH, I often think of something that needs entering into OneNote or Outlook at a time I can’t. As in while driving or in a social setting where diving into the phone would be impolite. Can I remember what it was a few minutes later at a red light or away from the table? Aye, there’s the rub. And a heavily chafing rub it is.
I hope some of this info proves useful to somebody. Try it; you might like it.
I’m 68. My long term memory has some holes, but is okay for the most part. My short term memory? Eh.
I generally remember enough about a book to know if I read it and liked it, as is the case with “Orlando,” which I read almost 50 years ago. I’m rereading it now, enjoying it all over again, …and remember absolutely nothing about the plot or characters except that the main one changes genders. Everything else is brand new.
(I’ve been gone a long time and still recall some of your names, so there’s that.)
I think maybe some things that help with ADHD can help with short term memory stuff. One of the things I’ve been doing is performing a task the instant I remember to do it. That way I only have to remember it once.
75 and mentally going strong, knock on… something. I’m around grandkids all day, do puzzles, trivia quizzes, read. My old physical injuries to joints are cropping up again which slows me down. Off to wash the car with my soon to be 4 year old granddaughter; I hope she gets some water on the car besides me this time.
I believe I watched all 8 seasons of “That 70’s Show” around 6-7 times before Netflix pulled it. It seemed like every round I would run in to one I didn’t remember.
I’m not as old as some of you, but…imo, over 30 is old.
A few years ago, I was watching a movie and recognized one of the supporting actors. I didn’t know his name, but I remembered him from another movie where he turned out to be the bad guy and ended up impaled on a hook at a shipping port.
Sure enough, at the end of the movie I was watching, he turned out to be the bad guy and ended up impaled on a hook at a shipping port. I couldn’t believe I had watched the whole movie with no recollection that I had seen it before.
While losing memory function is terrifying to me, I might not mind losing some memories. I recall an elderly acquaintance (in his 90s) with all his faculties who was desperate for ECT because his lifetime of memories was depressing the hell out of him. It was not something I really understood at the time – memory is identity, who’d want to lose any part of that? - but as I have aged, I have come to better appreciate how someone might prefer mind-wiping to living with certain phantoms of the past.
I saw – but did not interact with - this acquaintance shortly after the ECT treatment. He seemed exactly the same as before. I hope he was less haunted.
I fear there is such a thing as being too old. I’m not there yet, but I can only get closer.
I doubt if anyone does that - there’s a difference between forgetting where the keys are and forgetting what they are (for) . And in my experience with relatives , the “forget what it is” lapses aren’t really helped by reminders , not in the way that making a note of where I parked helps.
I’m only 60, but I’m getting bits and pieces of that. I had a crazy thing happen the other day, I read a mystery that was really entertaining, and when I got to the very last page, which had a huge twist, I suddenly remembered the twist from the book! I’d read it maybe six or seven years before, and somehow blanked on every bit of it except the very end.
I do expect that to continue, and yes I assume some of that is deterioration from age, but I also assume some of it is because I just keep piling stuff into my brain endlessly, and inevitably something else is going to get shoved out.
It probably doesn’t actually work that way, but that’s what I’m telling myself.
I have a friend who, if I’m remembering this correctly, keeps notes on things she needs to do on a calendar on her computer; I’m not sure which variety of calendar it is.
I started using the calendar on my phone to keep track of appointments. I have long resisted the “live and die by my phone” lifestyle, and I still get annoyed by all the businesses and electronic devices which insist on having me install an app on my phone. I also refuse to have my computer and phone synced so (if I’m understanding this correctly) they become peripherals of each other.
Keeping notes of things I need to do on a whiteboard did just bite me in the ass. I have to replace my furnace filter every three months, so I keep a note of when I last changed it by my whiteboard calendar. Over the weekend I noticed that the date on that was last December. Obviously I changed the filer immediately, but I still can’t figure out how I missed doing it in March. It may have had something to do with things that were going on in my life which occupied my mind. What it annoying about this is that my thermostat has a “change filer” function on it, which should have started flashing at the appropriate time. I just made sure to set that up again, so I’ll see what happens in September. (I also made a note that I need to buy more filers, as the one I just installed was my last one.
I’m sure I’ve accidentally reread books; in fact I can think of two, specifically. Both by authors of the “if the library has it, I’ll grab it” category. In one case, I got about 1 chapter in before I realized I had read it already (I reread it and enjoyed it again). In the second case, I kept thinking it seemed vaguely familiar, but wasn’t 100% convinced until halfway through.
Doesn’t say that much for the authors’ ability to write memorable, distinct tales, does it?
In terms of general memory: I don’t know phone numbers the way I used to. I can tell you my phone number from when I was growing up. I cannot tell you for sure what my kids’ phone numbers are (well, I could spout them off, but would need to double check in my portable brain, i.e. smartphone). I also still remember the condiment button layout of the cash registers at the Wendy’s I worked at in high school, nearly 50 years ago.
I do worry about things in general. No history of memory issues on my side of the family, but my husband’s mother has early-to-moderate Alzheimer’s and is in assisted living, as was her father.
I also know my phone from when I was growing and don’t know my kids’ phones. Why should I? Their phone numbers are on my phone and I never dial them, so why would I learn them. Actually, I do remember my daughter’s because she’s had the same number for over 30 years and I did used to dial it.
But just had a scary experience. A couple weeks ago, my phone disappeared. Then I got an ad for a phone from Verizon. So I called them and tried to replace my phone. They couldn’t find my account and I eventually hung up. Then I realized that I had mistaken Verizon for Videotron, my real supplier. That scares me. BTW, Verizon does not actually operate in Canada. You can use their phones here of course, but I could not have opened an account here. I just checked this out. This is worse than memory loss.
That’s the spirit, always blame the others! Works for me…
That is one of many nice sub-plots of One Hundred Years of Solitude, love that book! (This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk.) But no, never have done it yet. Can’t remember where the stick up notepads are when I need them, and then I mislaid the pen.
