I struggle to remember things.

Not everything. I remember the phonetic alphabet (which I need for flying). And I can name nearly every single Pokemon off by heart. I can recite various algorithms and equations, and even speak in foreign languages.

The things I struggle to remember are the important things:

What conversation did I have last week with my team member, and what did we decide to do next?

When was I supposed to do that chore at home, the one my partner asked me to do?

When is friends birthday?

The famous words of Ferris Bueller - "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might just miss it" are absolutely true for me. So much goes on day to day, that I often forget what is important, and I fill my brain with the stupidest of things.

So how do I remember stuff?

I've taken to using technology to remember stuff for me. I've built a habit of noting down everything, and setting myself regular reminds, to augment my ability to remember stuff.

This is a break down of the tools I use to remember stuff for me.

Short term / actionable things

Things I need to action soon, in the next week, for example, or short term to-dos that I need remind myself of. These things require very low friction to be useful to me, otherwise I will avoid making a note of it, and the task or action will get forgotten.

Apple reminders

I've set up Apple Reminders with Siri to make a note of something when I am currently busy with another task.

A typical situation might occur like this:

I am washing the dishes, and my partner reminds me that I need to clean the bathroom tomorrow. I'll grab my phone, open Siri and say something like:

"Remind me to clean the bathroom tomorrow at 9am".

I can then put down my phone and forget about it until the action is required.

Kanban board

I use Obsidian's Kanban board plugin for actions I need to take at work. I am a software developer, and so most of my TODO list is shared amongst the team in the form of tickets. But there are actions outside of software development that I need to take at work, so my work kanban helps me cover that basis.

If I am in a meeting and someone asks me to do something - I will always have Obsidian open, and the kanban pinned to the top of the app, so I just write a quick todo and stick it in the TODO column.

Apple Health

This is another form of reminders for me, but this is for regular, re-occurring things related to my health. Specifically, I am pretty poor at remembering to drink water. I also take Omega-3 to help supplement my vegetarian diet and because I have a pretty severe dry eyes, which fish oil is supposed to help.

Setting this up with the new medication feature was easy. 5 times a day I a reminded to drink a cup of water, and then at night I take my Omega-3.

Long term knowledge and attention support

Okay, so short term I have things solved. I am reminded about day to day things in a week thanks to these apps, but what about long term?

For me, remembering stuff long term really is about making sure I am exercising my attention properly to keep it refined. That way - important moments in life, or things I am learning (more on that below) stick in my brain longer.

I manage my long term knowledge and attention support in two ways.

Obsidian

Obsidian a configurable note taking app. The reason I started using it was, after I did an engineering leadership course, and they recommended I note down everything.

I picked Obsidian because it reminded me of an IDE like VS Code, but for plain text notes. My adoption of it was gradual; just installing the plugins that I needed, as I needed them.

Talking to other users, I found that the most success for user adoption was to take it slow and install only what you need. People who download it then configure it with all sorts of addons get overwhelmed and leave.

With Obsidian, I can organise thoughts, take meeting notes, use shortcuts to help with my day-to-day records, and use a form of hypermedia to link related notes together.

This website is also powered by it - the content you are reading is just a few notes in my "vault" that I've published on the web.

Journals

My personal notes on life events, my mental health, and what I do with my family (not work stuff, basically) are documented in a hand-written journal.

I find the process of journaling with a nice pen, often in a cafe, to be a meditative and calming experience. Half of the reason I journal is to just enjoy those moments.

The other half is to improve my attention - to be really mindful about my experiences and the things I am doing with my life. To reflect on them, and force those memories to imprint into my brain.

Learning

I also use technology to help me learn stuff, which is a form of remembering.

Most of the way I learn is by reading, and then going and doing. The doing part is highly contextual, but for the reading portion I use the following to learn:

Clipper

I read articles on websites, and store the best ones in Obsidian using Clipper.

The websites I visit the most often include:

I often queue up a bunch of articles to read under a grouped tab and use reading mode with Clipper to read the articles in a consistent UX.

Any articles that I love (including Youtube video transcripts) that I want to save and refer to in my notes; I use Clipper to save them to my Obsidian Vault.

Paperback books

Another distraction free, infinitely available technology. Paperback books offer me a way to focus on learning, and a small comfort away from the force of monitors and phone screens. No batteries required, works anywhere there is visible light, smells great.

Podcasts

I use Podcasts in the same way as paperback books. Not to distract myself, but to give myself a safe space to listen and learn. I absolutely love to hear people converse and discuss a topic. A great podcast with a journalistic narrative and insightful discovery is just my cup of tea.

What do you use?

Is there something here that inspired you? Is there a tool you think I should be using that I'm not? Let me know.

Paul