Due to a situation I find myself in, my daily habits have changed to a more simple daily schedule.
However, recently, I’ve been noticing that I struggle to recall certain events that happened the previous day:
What I ate for breakfast, what I did at work, what I learned in my classes, etc.
I don’t know how long this has been happening. Am I just overthinking it?
Yeah, I deal with this. Most notably for me is during the “daily standup” at work in which everyone on the team is supposed to recount what was worked on yesterday, what they’re working on today, and if there are any roadblocks.
Even though I know I was busy the day before, I often struggle to recall precisely what I worked on.
I have this issue too, caused by the anxiety I have knowing that the moment I have to speak publically my mind goes completely blank and the more I try to recall the worse it gets. To help overcome the issue I take a few minutes to make a brief list of notes at the end of every day that outlines what I worked on that day and where I left things.
It ends up in me mostly reading off a list but since I work remotely I just put it on another monitor and it’s not a big deal. I give it helped a ton and I feel much less put on the spot at the beginning of each work day.
I find it normal to leave the minutia of everyday details behind. It takes an effort to commit anything to memory. Sometimes just letting go and not expending the effort is worth it. If you’re missing important details, begin writing things down. Check yourself, your diet, your hydration, and your sleep. Every single one can impact your ability to form memories.
For several years, I wasn’t getting enough sleep (too busy, like most people).
During the COVID years, I was able to sleep 8 hours a day. After a few months of that, I had already noticed my memory improved a lot.
Now it’s been years and I can recall various random things in much higher resolution levels than before (faces details, conversations details, chess patterns, second language rules, my own ideas, etc.).
So much so that I have now made it a top priority to get my 8 hours of sleep every day, because I now remember how much of a time saver it ends up being.
I assume it’s my adhd causing it on my end.
Yea i know its ADHD for me, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s that plus other things lol.
I had exactly the same thing, and would come to my senses (for lack of a better term) every so often and be genuinely confused where days or even weeks had gone. One thing that has been really helping me is writing all the little things down such as what I ate or learned in classes as you mentioned.
I personally started using Logseq for this but basically any note taking application will do. The most important feature that I use is linking topics, for example I would mark a bullet point with #food and so on, which eventually organizes the thoughts automatically. It’s really nice to be able to just write and not even think about organizing it as that’s the computer’s job.
How old are you?
That’s what I was going to ask. I’m real close to 50 and the truth is, we start breaking down eventually (mentally and physically), no matter how well we take care of ourselves. It’s slow but inexorable. There are so many variables that you’ll see older people with a huge range of capabilities, but generally speaking there aren’t any 80 year olds out there functioning as well as they did in their 30’s.
