By: Audrey Thomas
The older I get, the more I can appreciate the methods my grandma and mom would use to remember things. Grandma would slip a rubber band on her wrist; mom would simply write a capital R on her hand. When it comes to remembering things from day-to-day, pay attention to processes you may need to put into place.
Here are 6 areas where having an effective process in place will prevent forgetfulness:
- Hopefully some day soon, you’ll be returning to working in an office that doesn’t resemble your kitchen table or a temporary desk in the corner of your bedroom. If your preference is to take your lunch to work, but you sometimes forgot to grab it from your frig, try putting your car keys in the frig with your lunch when you make it. Works every time!
- Before kids go to bed on a school day, have them place their backpacks, sports bags, musical instruments, etc. by the back door. Now all that will be needed to grab in the morning will be their lunch.
- Gym bag – The best time to pack your gym bag is when you bring it home with dirty clothes. Swap the dirty gear for clean and then immediately put it back in your car or at the very least, by the back door. It’ll be hard to trip over without taking it with you!
- Library books/Return Items for local stores – Put a small basket in your entryway for these types of items. It will be a visual reminder of things that need to go with you the next time you leave home.
- Groceries and other items – I use the MyShopi app to manage lists of things we need at the grocery store, pharmacy, discount store, etc. As we run out of things, we simply add it to the app’s appropriate list so it’s complete when we’re ready to run errands.
- Early Monday meetings –When I place an early Monday meeting on my calendar, I also place a reminder on the Sunday evening prior. And then I go one step further by setting an alarm for Monday morning to remind me once again!
Finally, when I’m engrossed in a project I realize that time can slip by unnoticed. I use the timer on my smartphone to nudge me when it’s time to turn my attention to a scheduled phone call or other appointment that I don’t want to miss.
