You’ve brushed your teeth and you are headed to bed. Suddenly you remember something very important for tomorrow. You can’t forget. You can go write it down, send yourself an email, etc. but you really just want to go to bed. How can you make sure you remember?
Simple. Grab your shoe and put it on top of the toilet. In the morning, you’ll stumble into the bathroom, see the shoe and groggily think “What in the world is that doing there?” As your brain clears you’ll remember you put it there for a reason and soon you’ll be awake enough to recall what caused you to put the shoe there in the first place.
This is very similar to tying a string around your finger. You can do it with about anything. Just put something out of its ordinary place to help you remember.
If you are married, it might be a good idea to let your spouse in on what you are doing. Otherwise they might try to clean up after you and ruin everything–they may also begin to question your sanity if it happens too often.
Another great way to “tie a string around your finger” is jott.com.
With Jott, you sign up, then once you have an account, you can call a phone number and dictate into the phone and it will send you an email with whatever message you wanted to send yourself (or anyone in your contact list on Jott).
I have been using it for awhile and for the most part it works pretty well, for technical terms it has some trouble but if it doesn’t understand the message you can always listen to a recording of what you said.
It is a useful technique, and it has a great name: useful landmine.
The image of a shoe on the toilet really made me smile :). Thanks for the tip.
I just keep a small notebook in my bedside drawer for all those thoughts that jump into my mind as my head touches the pillow. I jot them down, tear out the page and place it on top of the bedside table where I’ll see it next morning.
I think the best solution for this is a bedside moleskine.
I keep a moleskine for my daily capturing, that is, with dates for every day and then I just cram in all that comes in during a day (this will soon change when I get that MacBook Air :-) )
I also have a “bedside moleskine” for writing dreams when I wake up, self-reflection things, and things I need to review.
I’ve notice the time I decide to go to bed is the time most ideas pop into my head, so this bedside noting habit is worth it. It’s kind of the only time of day I get to self-reflect.
I keep a dry erase marker in a drawer in the bathroom. When I need to remember something, I just write it on the mirror. Of course, it helps to have a 10′ x 4′ mirror :-)
This isn’t really a technique that works for a bunch of daily tasks. The more you use it the less useful it will become, but for something random that you just thought of as you were going to bed, it can be faster than trying to write it down on paper.
This works no matter where I am. When that thought strikes that I can’t afford to forget, I switch my wedding ring from my left hand to my right. The odd sensation keeps reminding me of the thing I need to remember. Then, when I do the thing, I switch it back. ;)
@Matt – The ring idea is a great one! I’ll have to try that sometime.
Another twist (quite literally) on the ring is turning your watch face onto the inside of your wrist (or to whichever side it does not normally sit on). Works a treat for me when I am running around with no time to take notes!