Trusting your memory | ADHD Information

[QUOTE=oldmember]If we put things away here it would help us better. We are all bad at this. [/QUOTE]

Away what where?
If we put things away here it would help us better. We are all bad at this. I stopped trusting mine. It's pretty depressing. I find my biggest downfall to remembering to get things done is  I keep thinking, I'll remember that, its such a simple thing to remember, i wont forget, of cause I do! I really sud stop trusting my memory when it fails me constantly. Anyone find this? Deep down I knew I'd forget that washing i've left out all night, even though it was drumed into me, so why I didn't plug it into my phone? I got distracted and forgot, AHHHHHH.  oohh, I can SO relate...Yup, Dark Angel. That's me too. I think I care about doing things I enjoy rather than dislike. My biggest problem with my memory is remembering where I put it... I am learning to assume that I have no memory! If I can't get at something immediately, I have to write myself a note or ask someone to remind me. I always ask people to call me back if we can't talk on the phone right then because I forget to call them until its too late. My husband has learned that its better for him to pay the bills, or if it is something I have to do, he will call me to remind me.That's me to a T!  I finally just had to accept myself as being that way, unless I wanted to get depressed and hate myself every day!  I do things as I think of them when I can, but sometimes I get a wave of many things that I need to do, usually when I'm trying to go to sleep!  So now I keep a pen and paper next to my bed and write those things down.  It lets my brain relax.  I write down the things I think of during the day that I can't get to imediately because if I don't, who know when that thing will cross my mind again!yeah, me too - i have the world's worst memory....

i like to help people but more often than not i end up doing them a
disservice eg 'i'll come and pick you up at the airport when you get in'
then tuesday 7pm there is a phone call from said friend and i am four
hours away from the airport in the wrong direction and she has to get an
expensive cab... better that i hadn't offered.

meeting for lunch/supper i will always forget if not phoned the hour
before (as all my friends now know). otherwise again it is 'where are
you??????'

sometimes far more serious. was given the skeleton keys to the entire
halls of residence when i had lost my key (or locked it in my room i
forget) under strict instructions to return them immediately. of course
the moment i get in my room completely forget about that - go out.

meanwhile there is a fire alarm (very luckily a false one) and none of the
firemen had any keys to check/open the locked dorm rooms etc. etc.
could have been fatal.

faces - hopeless. i end up smiling at anyone who looks vaguely familiar
just not to be rude. and once when one 'semi-stranger' smiled back i
went right up and said 'how lovely to see you again' only to find out in
fact it was an actor from a long-running soap that i had vaguely
recognised.

the opposite is often the case... and i can smile openly shake hands with
someone believing i have never met them before in my life -- only to be
told that i spoke with them for hours three days before. the sentence i
hate most is 'you know each other don't you....' at which i have to smile in
both a yes and no manner until the other person answers the question
and i can' take my cue from them. because i have no idea.

names - i've given up. it's not that i don't know them it's that i can't
recall them. i'll remember five hours too late! even my ex-boyfriend.... i
phoned him up and his mate answered the phone which i wasn't
expecting so it threw me and i said 'i want to speak to... i want to speak
to...

and luckily he said 'dave?' at which point i went 'yes, yes dave!!!!' my ex-
boyfriend hmmm.

yup memory - what, what?? I have no problem with my memory. It works like a fine tuned..... what were we discussing? >Remember, You Will Forget<        &n bsp;        

My wife is always saying,"remember we talked about
that yesterday", and I'm thinking>What ! Oh, ok, yea.
I guess when I have conversations with "SHE who
must be obeyed", I mean, "my lovely wife", I
sometimes space-out.
But when in comes to doing things around the
house, I've gotten much better with the Ritalin.
Also trying to do sometime when you think of it, not
later, 'cause later is always later.

I use Microsoft products to aid my memory.

Outlook has to be the best. I keep my calendar on it, and for every one of the 1,644 contacts, I jot down notes a/b what we talked a/b on most every meeting.

I mounted a Jotto (jotto.com) desk in my car, and pull over to write notes a/b phone calls, or at stop signs, or all right, I admit it, while rolling even. I've been thinking of getting that Dragon Naturally Speaking, but does anyone know if it's worth the money?

I love making phone calls from my desk at the office (in my garage), b/c I can type fast enough to quote word for word what was said. Hey, I could be my own dragon, eh? hehe

Excel, Access, PowerPOint and Word also help me stay on top of my memory. Oh, don't forget the internet. I have a horrible memory for audible words, and will often transpose letters, sounds, syllables, etc., so I probably average 3 or 4 googles trying to look up something I didn't write down. Like, ADHD surveys...

 

              From what I'v read, ADD'ers have limited 'storage' or 'filing' space in their internal {short term}  memory. So using a external 'filing' or 'storage' system is one solution.        &nb sp; 

              Asking or expecting others to remind us with phone calls, e-m{E-Mail} or other prompts has limited success.  We need to find ways to prompt ourselves. 

              One way I'm trying to do this is to Pro cras ta nate later.  You can even e-m yourself. Why not if it works.  When you keep using these prompts {whatever they may be} they can become habits that you will not to even think about.

 

What I would love to have is a gadget that I can speak into that will type up what I say - and if I say that I have to be reminded, then it'll put it into an appointment/reminder that will alert me as I need it.  I'd want it to be as small as the cell phones are today and it'd be perfect if it was a cell phone/organizer/Ipod also.

My problem with palm pilots and email is that I can't get things typed as quickly as I think them.  I need something that will record my voice and then will type it out and sort it as I need it.  Because I know that I'll never come back to it.

 

 

                    David. . .

                                   Just don't try that on your wife . . . or maybe you should.

Oh, I just make sure the girlfreinds have the same name...

NOT! This was BC.

I do call her our daughter's name, or my rivaling sibling's name, in the heat of the battle (never in the heat of the moment)...

i have a really good memory for details- just as long as it's not germane to the  right now.

also, i constantly schedule two things for the same time. set up a work appointment for say, 4pm tues. moments later, i'll set up a dr.'s appt. for, well, oh! 4pm tues,. sounds good!

4pm tues rolls 'round is when it occurs to me i have not one, but two places to be at opposite ends of town.

have tried notepads, daytimer, friends. but for them to work, i have to: a) remember to write it down, b) remember where i wrote it down, and c) find the place i wrote it down before i need to be where i need to be.

the stress of dealing with this chronic error is somewhat less than the stress of trying to correct it.

mom always told me i'd forget my head if it weren't attached.

I told this story somewhere else in here, but I hadn't seen an old girlfirend for about six months, and when I saw her again, I didn't recognize her, and introduced myself to her... she says "you're kidding, right?!"