Friendly Reminders.

I was already thinking about writing about this topic, so in my scratch file I left a note:

There’s remembering, which can only work as well as your mind is at the moment you need to remember, and then there’s remindering: leaving yourself external clues to remember.

Some things have well-known reminders. Bookmarks (whether in a web browser or in an actual book) may be the most-used. You can either thumb through to find your spot again (or dig in your browser history), or you can plunk a thing in the book (an entry in the browser’s database) to make it easy.

Like having too many browser bookmarks, having too many physical bookmarks in a book quickly becomes unmanageable. You can’t tell which one is the one you’re after. So there are limits to that system. But most of the time we only need a few reminders, or even just one.

In my browser bookmarks go, by default, to a “current” folder. If I need them long term, I move them elsewhere. If I’m done with them, I nix them.

But outside of a book and outside of a browser? If I need to remember to do something around the house, I’ll often leave a thing out of place to remind me. Sometimes it’s an item associated with the task, like leaving the laundry sack beside the bed if I need to do laundry. Other times it’s simply something out of place. Leaving a book on the end of the desk to remind me that the dishwasher hadn’t finished so I need to go back to air it out before bed.

That’s the string-on-a-finger method, famousized by Ernie from Sesame Street: YouTube: Sesame Street: “Ernie Tries to Remember”. It’s weak in the sense that it doesn’t have an explicit meaning to it. You have to remember the context, unlike the bookmark, which includes what it’s about.

So you have to remember what you have to remember, but you don’t have to remember to remember. This is similar to the Waffle House restaurant chain’s “Pull Drop Mark” system (WaffleHouseMenu.com: “Waffle House Ordering System: How It Works & Why It’s Fast”). You have to learn their system to find it useful. Nobody can look at one of those weird plate arrangements without training and know what the order was.

Both systems have their places. And some of those places are in video games. I happened to be reading tips for The Long Dark, when one called out dropping inventory items to remind yourself to do things in game. It’s an inventory-heavy game, so it makes good sense to leave your bedroll by the door so you don’t forget it.

Back in scouts, one of the adults said he would leave his car keys in his refrigerator the night before a camping trip, so that he wouldn’t forget food or frozen bottles of water.

The key to that method is that he couldn’t leave without the keys, so the fact he had to get them from there meant he couldn’t leave without knowing if he’d grabbed the essentials.

Remembering things is a skill. There are all kinds of mnemonic tools and tricks people use, in education and in life. Some people have fancy memory palaces.

You might have learned a few, like “Sah Coh Toa” or how many very eager nachos there were. But it’s mostly untaught as something people can build for themselves. It would be nice if this were something that folks learned more about in school.