Use your phone more

As humans, we’re great at a lot of things. We can think creatively, solve large problems in the world, and we’ve even put a man on the moon. But one thing we’re absolutely terrible at is remembering things.

We routinely forget about simple things like appointments and friends’ birthdays. And usually if we forget enough things, or very important things, there can be quite drastic consequences.

I get it, our lives are busy. We have so many things going on in that we sometimes find it hard to have any time for ourselves, let alone think of all the appointments we have and the scheduled activities we've said yes to.

But why use our brains to remember things, when we can use technology?

As obvious as it sounds, I still see people forgetting to do simple things like remembering to eat breakfast (I’m talking about myself here).

The phones we use on a day to day basis have gotten so powerful in recent times. Instead of trying to remember all the information with our brain, just delegate the tasks and events to your phone. Use the notes, reminders, heck even the alarm clock app to organise things.

We need to leave the more permanent data with machines to handle, and the higher level thinking to humans.

A quote from Don Norman in the book, “the Design of Everyday Things” is one to remember. “Machines should focus on solving arithmetic problems. People should focus on higher-level issues, such as the reason the answer was needed”. Although not entirely related to our topic today, he has the same general idea - Why use valuable brain power on things that we don’t need to remember readily?

So the next time you schedule lunch with your friend on a Friday, just ask your only other friend, Siri, to remind you about it.