Tech 1.1

The upshot is I still have short term memory issues, some things stick, but there is a lot that doesn’t such as names, dates to state a few. I also find it hard to work out my calendar, to remember when I’m busy or have commitments and therefore not double book myself. I also don’t like it when I have more than 4 or 5 outstanding issues or appointments. Up to this amount I’m ok, sometimes even about 5 items, as long as I know what order they are in and have them ‘sorted’ in my head. If not then I get anxious and start to get edgy or sometimes even angry, especially if someone tries to add an item to the list, even something pleasant like eating out or the cinema, it all becomes too much and I get frustrated and annoyed

So I use apps to help me out, I set calendar appointments for just about everything, these are all flagged under different calendars with colour tags to separate the projects, my personal life and any other things I need to remember. The appointments have different reminders that pop up and prompt me as needed, these can be set minutes, hours or days in ahead depending on importance. Something that requires a lot of preparation has reminders set days ahead, and even multiple reminders depending on how important it is as a countdown. This is another tip calendars can give you several prompts for an appointment which is good for the important ones because you may clear the reminder absentmindedly or just out of habit, and then forget to act upon it. Muscle memory or habit is a very strong force and can override your conscious which should have been registering the appointment and acting upon it

For more immediate tasks I set an alarm, this can be repeated for tasks that have a pattern or regularity. I name the alarm to the task or project, don’t be tempted to leave it the default tag ‘alarm’ or you will forget what the alarm was for. For names of course it’s merely a contact list which is nothing new, however when I use Apples Notes I find it handy to put links into each note. Notes is context aware and very good at working out different types of data and parsing them. If you enter phone numbers it will work that out and make it a link, merely clicking on this link will launch the Phone app and let you dial the number, ensuring you add or create these links in Notes will greatly increase the number of links you have to each person, project or stream

These interconnections which work very similar to your memory does in its abstract form help me remember people, dates, numbers etc. Similar to your memory and if you ever try to train your memory you will be taught this, the more links you create between different items to more likely you are to pull it out of the database, in other words the more likely you are to remember it

So the point of this diversion is once again I’m using bundled software and apps to handle the organisation side of things both in my personal life and this project