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Remembering intentions: How to remember future actions & events

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

includes a 20-item questionnaire to help you assess how well you remember the things you need to do, and to help you decide on those specific tasks you want to improve

2. Remembering to do things

discusses how memory for future actions is different from other types of memory, and why intention memory is more challenging than other memory tasks

3. Structuring your goals

Part of the problem of remembering intentions over time is that we are usually holding in memory lots of intentions, with a variety of characteristics. This chapter establishes a hierarchy of goals and discusses the strategies people use to order the many goals they have in memory. Most importantly, it discusses what happens when circumstances change, and what you need to do to ensure you don't forget your intention.

4. Circumstances that affect your remembering

How successful you are in remembering intentions is governed most of all by the strategies you use to help you remember, but it is also governed by various circumstances of the particular memory task. This chapter looks at factors of importance in determining how easy an intended action will be to remember. In particular, it discusses:

• event-based remembering vs time-based remembering
• whether being too busy is a valid excuse for not remembering an intention
• whether forgetting an intention is really a sign of its unimportance to you
• the effects on remembering of timing and complexity of the intended action

5. Are some people better at remembering intentions?

Remembering intentions is in fact one of the areas of memory which shows little worsening with age. There are, however, certain types of circumstances in which remembering intentions can be harder for seniors, and this chapter discusses those. The chapter also looks at the question of whether there is some quirk of personality that makes some people better at remembering intentions than others.

6. General strategies for remembering intentions

This and the following chapter are the core of the book. This chapter briefly discusses the most popular strategies and their effectiveness, and looks in more detail at the most common strategy: using environmental aids (calendars, timers, objects, etc). While everyone knows this strategy, not everyone uses it effectively. We'll see what you need to do to use environmental aids effectively. However, the main focus of the chapter is on describing the mental strategies you can use to improve your recall for intentions in different circumstances.

7. Strategies for specific tasks

Effective memory strategies are usually very specific. This chapter looks at common memory tasks and the specific strategies you can use to remember them.

• Remembering appointments
• Remembering anniversaries and birthdays
• Remembering arrangements
• Remembering errands and chores
• Remembering to take medicine

8. Your master strategy

How to assess your memory task to work out the best strategy for remembering it. Examples of worksheets for detailing tasks you wish to improve (remembering birthdays; remembering to return books; remembering to pay bills on time, etc), and accompanying strategies.

Appendix A: Theories of prospective memory

Appendix B: External memory aids

Appendix C: The coding mnemonic

Appendix D: Specific strategies for specific tasks

Appendix E: Questionnaire

Glossary of terms

References

Chapter Notes