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| Rebecca Dutton Home After a Stroke |
When I forgot to pick up a friend who has a brain injury I felt guilty. She blamed herself because she thought she had remembered the wrong date. This painful experience taught me that memory aids have to be in my face. I can repeatedly ignore a stack of reminders sitting in an out of the way place. I use classic memory aids in some unusual ways.
The current month sits on my kitchen table where I eat breakfast. I used to highlight important events, but the page of bright colors was distracting by the end of the month. Now I use 2 colored tabs to mark important dates and move the tabs when the events are over. I fold the page for each month in half and put future months in the napkin holder on the right. Every piece of paper is stuffed in it's respective month. The arrow is pointing to a month that has a postcard from my dentist reminding me to make an appointment. I got that postcard six weeks ago. If I had put the postcard on my kitchen counter who knows where it would be now. I also tear a page from an amusing day-to-day calendar before I start to eat which tells me what the current date is. Remembering can be fun. Breakfast = funny joke = date.
A word of caution about memory aids. What helps one person remember doesn't make a bit of sense to another person. The memory aids I use are only examples that may help you discover memory aids that work for you. There are also lots of places that meet the "where you sit down every day" criteria. Negotiate with your family to find a prominent place that you can put your memory aids. It requires others to adjust to a few changes, but they will appreciate your improved memory. Readers of my blog have said how organized I am. I fooled you. My memory is on paper.
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