Whatever you want to call it (agenda, assignment notebook, date book, mortar board, etc.) the date book is an amazing tool. It is an absolute necessity for people with bad memories who want to look like they are on top of things all of the time. I write everything down in my date book. At the beginning of the semester, I go through all of my class syllabuses and write in all the exams and important due dates in BIG RED letters. Exams rarely sneak up on me.

There are many different types of date books. In high school and grade school, everyone is generally handed a date book at registration. Schools hand these out in an effort to get students to be a little more organized. This tactic is generally unsuccessful because the people who use the books are the students who would have gone out and bought their own because they want or need the books to help keep themselves organized. In college and real life, only the people who want date books get them for themselves, and they (like me) actually use them every day, and they are better prepared and organized in their everyday lives because they use them.

My Rememberall Cont...

After years of forgetting to bring things places for friends, or forgetting that I had a meeting with a teacher at 3:20 on Thursday after school, I turned to the most fool proof method for remembering things that I have ever seen. I get out a ballpoint pen and I write myself a note on the back of my hand. There is nothing quite like the repeated exposure you get from writing a quick word on the back of your hand to make you remember. The best thing is, you can write down the bare minimum on your hand. You don't need to write, "Meeting with Mr. Smith at 3:20 in room 317." All that you write in your schedule book, and then on the back of your hand, you write Smith or 3:20. It's just enough to remind yourself of what you need to remember. If you can just remember to remember, then you can look up the exact time and place of the engagements, or the specifics of the assignment in your date book.

Some people have told me that writing on your hand is bad for you, and that I’ll get skin cancer or something, but I tend to disagree. Most ballpoint pens use water based ink and your notes to yourself will wash off without a trace with just a little soap and water. I would not recommend using Sharpies or other permanent markers for the simple fact that the notes last a very long time, and this method is not meant to help you remember something you have to do in a week, it’s just supposed to get you through a day or two at tops.

My Rememberall

For all of you out there who haven’t read the Harry Potter series, first of all, you should, and second of all, a rememberall is a magical ball that Neville Longbottom (a very forgetful character)uses to try to improve his memory. The way a rememberall works is that it fills with smoke when its owner has forgotten something important. In theory, this would be an amazing tool in the forgetful person’s tool kit of tips and tricks, I mean, who wouldn’t want to get an instantaneous reminder every time they forgot something important. The flaw, as Neville quickly discovered is that the rememberall merely tells a person when they have forgotten something, but it does not tell the person what it is they have forgotten.

OK, so, raise your hand if you if you have ever remembered the night before that you need to remember to bring something really important with you to work or class the next day. In the morning, after you have climbed down the four flights of stairs on your way to work, you remember just as you are reaching the bottom that you needed that very important something. Then you have to climb all the way back upstairs to retrieve it, and you are inevitably late for class. And even if you do not remember at the bottom of the stairs, you will inevitably have this nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach that you’ve forgotten something, but will you be able to remember what you have forgotten? Inevitably, you will never be able to remember what you need when you need to.

If only there was a way to anticipate forgetting something…

To Be Continued…

testing testing

I wrote it down so that I wouldn’t have to remember.

The human brain is amazing until it doesn’t want to do what it’s told. That is when I turn to post it notes. My motto is I wrote it down so that I wouldn’t have to remember. I have a cork board in my room that is quite literally plastered with notes to myself. My friends think it is chaotic and confusing, but I think that it gets everything up off the surface of my desk, and is thus way more organized than any other method I have ever tried before.

This does get a little inconvenient after a while because you end up covering your desk in little notes to yourself, and then you either have to have only one line item per note (and after you complete it you throw it out), or you get to cross things off a list.

I find that one of the most amazingly satisfying things when you are overwhelmed is crossing items off on a list. Just being able to check off, Yes, I finished that reading, Yes, I took out the garbage, No, I still need to finish that ten page term paper for tomorrow morning has a real mind clearing property that is one of the major underlying factors of the Think Zone. Get stuff OUT of your head and on paper so that you can work on what you need to without worrying about whether or not you forgot about an important something you were supposed to do.

I don't care if it makes sense to you, everyone else is confused!

Scenario 1: Teacher A hands out three seemingly identical sheets of paper, and then says the first one I handed out is your homework for Monday. The second sheet I handed out is your homework for Wednesday, and the third sheet is your homework for Friday. That gets confusing really quickly! Who's to say which one he handed out first second and third? This type of teacher ends up getting a whole mess of different assignments on the wrong days.

Scenario 2: Teacher B hands out three sheets of paper; a red one, a blue one and a hot pink one, and than says the red one labeled Monday is your homework for Monday. The blue one labeled Wednesday is your homework for Wednesday, and the hot pink one labeled Friday is your homework for Friday.

Teacher B is the forgetful person's dream. It is almost impossible to do the wrong homework in scenario 2. Many teachers do not realize how very helpful they can be just by planning ahead when doing their copies or making up their worksheets. Not only does color coding and labeling help students, it also helps out the teachers. There is less confusion, and the homework takes less explaining in class. For forgetful people, if teachers do not help you out with labels, write on things yourself. A professor is not going to care if a paper has Monday September 22 written on the top of it. So help yourself out. Write it down so that you don’t have to remember.

The Think Zone: an introduction

The Think Zone is the basic definition of memory. The idiots guide to why we remember the useless stuff (like what the scientific term for birds flocking is: allelomimetic behavior) and forget the important stuff (like the material for the test I have on Friday).

The human brain is an amazing machine that we don’t fully understand. Thinking is entirely generated by tiny electrical impulses shooting around your brain by way of neuron pathways that develop over time. For example, many people who were once proficient at playing an instrument can pick up that instrument after an extended period of not playing and play a simple song or two. This is because the neurons in their brains connected to each other very strongly, and the muscle memory of where to put their fingers and the rhythm of the song can be conjured up in their minds fairly easily. The more a person uses the pathways they create in their brains, the stronger and longer lasting they will be.

According to dictionary.com, memory is

"the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences".

Some people have great memories. Sadly, the rest of us have a little more difficulty accessing the information stored deep down those neurological pathways in our brains, and so we need to help ourselves out a little. My next few blogs will be on memory tips and tricks for all the forgetful people out there.

What to write about...

Most blogs have topics. Some people just ramble to themselves, but those are the blogs that disintegrate into daily journals after a while. I thought about what I wanted to talk about for a long time. So… the topic needs to be broad and still interesting, and I realized pretty quickly that the best topic for me would be one that is basically infinite…the human mind. I am pursuing a minor in Psychology at Purdue University, and have already taken three courses, so I think I have enough of a base to understand most of the research I would need to do on the topic. For the past few months, my sister and I have been developing a concept we like to call “The Think Zone”. Our concept deals mostly with memory and how everyday life clutters up your brain. It is not really scientific yet, but with some research, I think “The Think Zone” could provide fuel for thought and blogging for quite a while.

I have always loved writing. I was a writer on my High School newspaper for four years, and loved every minute of it. Blogging is the natural next step for me because newspaper in college is really intense time wise and there just always seem to be a million things that need my attention; homework for instance.

Currently I have to go to class, so I’ll say goodbye until I find more time in between homework, class, and work to write again.