Ask HN: How do you deal with slight memory impairment?

Flash cards might help? https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Also memory is muscle, you can train it. Personally I think all children should spend a couple of years before proper schooling developing a photographic memory. It would make life so much easier.

But check out the 'method of loci' too https://www.amazon.co.uk/Method-Loci-Russell-Jesse/dp/550855... you can improve your memory to the point where it becomes photographic/editic.

I’ll second the Anki suggestion. I’ve been using it for a while and it is a game changer. The nice thing is you get to choose what you remember.

Moleskin journal; people, places, important memories, written every day.

But keep the technical journal separate, imo.

Realize that everything is equally important.. to someone. Your job is to juggle all those things and make everyone happy. Including yourself. First.

Check your health especially cognitive - memory decline is not normal at your age or twice your age. Sleep apnea (for example) often goes undetected and causes cognitive issues like this.

Ymmv but lack of focus (mainly from using my phone or checking online stuff too much) has destroyed my memory because I'm always half distracted when I'm doing stuff. If this may be the problem, leave your phone somewhere else when you're working, and look at what you can cut out from your online or attention economy routine.

I've never had that great of a memory. The upside is that you can have a bad memory and good note taking skills and be more effective than the 'good memory' people. Really it's just that I forget in a day what other people forget in a week so it's not that big of a gap. But some considerations:

1. Put everything in the issue tracker that you can. This includes notes on what actually happened when you did the work. Include technical details.

2. Try to push everyone else to use the issue tracker. Also makes you sound like the professional in the room.

3. Have a very lightweight note taking mechanism and use it as much as possible. I am gud at vim so I use the Voom plugin (which just treats markdown headings as an outline but it's enough to store a ton of notes in a single .md file). Don't try to make these notes good enough to share as that adds too much overhead.

4. Always take your own notes in a meeting.

5. I will revisit my notes on a project from time to time, and sometimes walk through all of them, but I'm not really treating them like flashcards to memorize. I'm just looking for things that might need some renewed attention. Same with the backlog.

6. In general, I don't try to improve my memory because I don't know what I need to know for a week vs. what I won't look at again for a year. So I focus on being systematic about having good-enough notes on everything and don't really expect to remember anything. (I do remember some things but it's random.)

There is a memory-enhancing pill. It is just a placebo, but you must remember to take it once a day.

Back when I had severe memory problems because of health problems, one thing that helped me was using the Reminders App. I added a Siri shortcut, so as soon as I realized what I had to do, I added it there and whenever I felt like I was missing something, would just reference it.

Sticky Notes can work really well too, if you don't let them get out of hand.

Your memeory might be fine. We put an unnatural burden on folk to recall in late stage capitalism, paired with rampant gaslighting and other abuse tactics.

I use a paper diary, paired with storing my important appointments on my phone in iCal.

I haven't found a good solution to the fundemental issue that paper notes are unencrypted but offline, while electronic notes are easily siphoned up by electronic intrusions.

But by turning off services like iCloud, using encryption when offered, and reminding folks who act on information they shouldn't have I'm not required to excuse such behavior, you can greatly simplify your life.

Focus on consent -- being able to recall bare facts like medical appointments or the day you need to return your video tapes, and keep emotional stuff on paper IMHO.

(I usually keep two notebooks, one for "emo BS" for lack of a better phrasing, and one for more sciencey stuff, but they've merged into one during my unemployment.)

You gotta dial in your sleep, exercise and diet first. Consult professionals about sleep, diet and exercise issues to confirm you are in a sustainable and effective routine.

If those three fundamentals don't improve anything, you should then consult a professional to help. If the professionals can't help then you can try out personal suggestions from others (like this thread). This is just the path in order of most-likely to least-likely solutions.

It is possible that you have an inherently bad memory. It seems like long-term memory from your post, but some more clarification would be good.

No sweat. Look into Anki flashcards and do all your note taking for things you want to memorize long term. For all other forms of notes, just have them easily accessible via search or time/date stamps. Gotta craft systems using reliable tools as crutches to improve on any innate abilities. I may not be able to dunk on a ten-feet basketball hoop, but I sure can with a trampoline!

Cheers, and I hope you find a reliable solution soon. You deserve it

I've known a number of people that keep a daily diary just to remember what they need to get done. They review it at the end of the day and determine how to deal with the tasks. If they have something important that has not been processed, they mark the page with a post-it. It works mainly because you can adapt it to suit your style of working. Also, the more you use it the more you can determine what's important and what's not. If you are afraid of losing the book, take a photo of the page at the end of the day using MS OneNote or any of such apps as a back up. It's simple yet powerful.

Apps and such have the downside that you have to adapt to them and you have to learn the never ending variety. Also, nothing beats the portability and cost of a paper notebook.

I literally keep my iPad next to me and write everything down, by hand, with my Pencil, into an app called Nebo Notes which translates handwriting into text. It's shockingly good, and I'm able to search my notes. I literally just write down notes about every conversation, every PR I open, every ticket I'm working on, anything that comes to my mind while at work. The best part is I can literally stop thinking about work when I log off because my second brain will be available when I get back to my desk.

Three journals/sets of docs:

Active - Currently doing/note taking on current task. The idea is not to recall later but for the task at hand. This is physical.

Reflective - After completing a task take the active notes and refine and update them for someone other than you. This is a git repo my team has access to.

Aspirational - Ideas, concepts, all that jazz. For me this is lots of mechanical drawings etc that I want to CAD up, interesting phenomena that could be reproduced with code, far fetched ideas to solve the world's problems, nothing is off limits. This is a physical notebook and the one thing I'd grab if my house was on fire.

Google has some good resources on technical writing[1].

[1] https://developers.google.com/tech-writing

I’m 24 and been noticing decreasing memory as well. I constantly forget what I have done during standup in the morning and can’t think of location of code when asked about it..etc

For my case it’s definitely due to lack of sleep which is caused by consuming great amount of caffeine for my workout every other day. I’m considering dropping pre-workout but I just can’t control myself eating junk food!

I've always had bad memory and suffer from mild dyslexia as well. Used to really struggle with exams at school because I found it hard to memorize stuff. But I didn't let it stop me. Did elec engineering degree and after a decade in industry went back to do a PhD in software engineering.

My solution: keeping a journal handy, writing down everything. For example, when I was doing network engineering on large corporate networks, I would write down every step that I performed, configuration data, etc. Adding page numbers, URLs for referenced tech doco. In my programs I write comments against every class/method to remind myself why I did things the way I did.

From what I've read and also based on my personal experience, writing by hand seems to make things more memorable. I also find it quicker to flick through bound journals than trying to find things on a computer/smartphone -- obviously tried those and they weren't as effective for me.

The bonus for me has been that I always updated design documentation to "as built and installed" state. My managers and clients really appreciated the accuracy.

I have brain damage in my right temporal lobe, causing a lot of memory issues.

Everyone's giving you advice about changing your lifestyle so I'll go to the extreme: speak to your doctor and describe your symptoms, possibly a specialist (neurologist). They may want to do an MRI of the brain, or an IQ test (WAIS) to narrow their diagnosis.

At your age these problems are not normal (depending on severity of course, I don't know you). You want to get in front of this problem early if it's serious.

@marcellusDrum

I am seventy five. I have a very very good memory - for certain things. And a sucky memory for other things.

So, yes, harevesting memories is an issue for sure.

Nonethless: may I posit the other side?

Being able to forget is sublime!!!

I happen to be a person that writes software. The best thing I do these days is to forget the software that has already been written.

The "today" code I write - that even seems crazy - is singularity frequently better than yesterday's code.

My advice:

Forget the past

Remember your future

ox ox

Theo

I record all my phone calls, and most in person meetings that I believe will be information dense. I also take pictures when in doubt.

It's very satisfying when someone is trying to gaslight you and you catch them in the act with evidence, or you happen to catch some tidbit you weren't supposed to know on the 3rd or fourth listen.

I had some professional deformation during my 20s; I started to just remember all code I read and wrote and ever written, but forget mostly anything else. I started training my memory by learning languages and doing memory exercises; it is working. And fun. But it does take up a lot of time.

Good question you ask. Many good comments, thank you other posters.

First comment is allow more time for things you want to recall to appear.

Second comment is I got a small benefit by taking vitamin B12. Set up a note sheet, take some vitamin B12 the night before you want to remember something and write down the results.

Along those lines, I mention Daniel Khaneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow.

I suggest you study the phrase 'memory impairment'and until you find a much better phrase. A second book I recommend is Norbert Weiner in Cybernetics Command and Control in animal and machine". He proposed that the human brain differs from computers because the memory more or less lasts for the life of the human. In computers, the memory is reset.

I am similar. My response was to not be in a situation which require quick recall of many things. So, go for an IC role (dev) where you mostly work on your own and it doesn’t matter that you don’t remember things right away. Avoid management roles, meetings and other occasions where you’re often put on the spot.