# What are your time markers for remembering when things occurred? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 3, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-time-markers-for-remembering-when-things-occurred/969049 "2022-08-03T19:45:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-time-markers-for-remembering-when-things-occurred/969049/21 "2022-08-04T18:34:31Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > The other day I was trying to remember how long ago we got our Roomba. I was able to recall which apartment we were living in at the time, which places it somewhere between the fall of 2015 and the summer of 2018. Since I went away to college 20 years ago, I haven’t lived in any one place for more than 3 years, so if I can remember where I lived when something occurred, that narrows it down a lot. Now that we’ve bought a house and are planning to stay there hopefully more than 3 years, I’m going to have to figure out something else. > > I can narrow down earlier events even better if I can remember what grade I was in. And for the 8 years I lived in Boston during and after college, I can sometimes pinpoint time of year based on my memory of whether I was wearing a coat or sandals. But the climate of southern California, where I grew up and where I live now, doesn’t offer enough seasonal variation to help much with that. > > So what are the clues that come to mind for you when you’re trying to remember when something happened? Same thing. I can recall when things happened based on where I was living at the time. I frequently make use of this. I also have a mnemonic for which dinosaurs lived when – I just remember which hall the skeletons used to be in before the American Museum of Natural History re-arranged things a couple of decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-time-markers-for-remembering-when-things-occurred/969049/22 "2022-08-04T20:02:11Z")
In the past, it was - where I/we lived, which kids were in which schools, which dog we had, etc. For the past 10 years we’ve lived in the same house, we’ve had the same jobs, our kids have all been out of the house… So for the past decade, it is down to things like when our grandkids were born, trips we’ve taken, when our last dog died and we got the new one… I guess both of my wife’s parents died in that stretch, so those are 2 markers. But as a practical matter, we are REALLY poor at narrowing down when much of anything happened. Of course, we are at a place in our lives where not much DOES happen - so we’re good! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-time-markers-for-remembering-when-things-occurred/969049/23 "2022-08-04T20:30:26Z")
When I was younger, it was girlfriends. Any movie we saw in the theater, I could tell you what year it came out. More recently, ailments. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-time-markers-for-remembering-when-things-occurred/969049.md?page=1)