Tips for memory:
For us as ADHDers, our memory seems a lot of the time, as elusive as a shooting star. Sometimes we are soo great at remembering the tiniest details and other times the most foundational activities, that are truly front and center in our hearts, totally escape us as if they were stolen away without our knowing. How do we more firmly embed the most precious parts of our lives more firmly into our front brains so that our follow through more accurately reflects our heart intentions? Read on to find out.
5 Tips for improving memory right where it counts:
The dump-list concept: Sometimes details about foundationally important things present themselves when your mind and body are not primed to process them. In these cases, its important to have a pre-planned dump list. Somewhere you put things, knowing you have a reserved time and place for revisiting and appropriately addressing whatever is under that category but at a different time than right now.
Individualize your input: Think about your future self encountering something important but not processable in the moment. What would be the most accessible and efficient way to capture the information for your own brain at that moment? Would it be to take a picture of the information with your phone, voice record the information with your phone, write it down in a specific place on your notes on your phone, or write it in your planner? Which sense would be most accessible and effective for you?
Individualize your output: Once you’ve captured the information,think about the most applicable day and time you would be most primed for planning out your day or week, and picture your future self at that specific time and most likely place you would be. Where would be the most accessible or likely place you would look for those loose ends so that you could process them? Would you look at a certain place in your planner, notes on your phone, most recent pictures, or most recent voice recordings? Set yourself an alarm in your phone labeled check output at the appointed time and day.
Communication between input and output: If your input and output answers are different, make a plan of how to sync the two together. Perhaps, leave yourself a message in your chosen output place to check your chosen input places before processing and or leave yourself a reminder in your input place to transfer to output when you have a chance. Perhaps, you choose to sync both of them up by taking a picture and putting it in a folder in your pictures labeled DumpList, deleting them when you address them.
Individualize your processing: When you’re committing them to memory, try different modes of interacting with the content. Record your voice and play it back, write out the content, draw pictures or symbols of the content, find physical items that have to do with each task and put them in a specific central place or a specific order, verbally repeat each part of the content, associate each item with a specific important and heart-felt relationship, and/or match each part with a specified motor movement. Also, try walking, balancing, or rocking side to side while committing these to memory.
To wrap up, memory can seem like a fickle and elusive concept for us ADHDers. However, after reviewing the tips above, you’ve hopefullygleaned creative ways of connecting with your own unique processing that has raised your awareness, curiosity, and possibly your probability of accurately reflecting your heart-felt intentions with functional follow through.