Setting reminders

One of my frustrations these days is my forgetfulness and short memory span. I would think about something and the next second, literally the very next second, I would forget about it until it was too late.

Just today, the battery in my car key was showing a warning sign of low battery. I was reminded that I needed to change the battery. I was thinking about it as I was closed the car door.

But I totally forgot about it until the next few days after that. I drove my car, locked it, went to work and when I came back to my car, I couldn’t open the door. The door wouldn’t beep. It was just silent. I pressed the button, nothing and that was when it crossed my mind, darn, the battery!

Luckily, I was in the city with shops nearby and I went to the nearest watch shop to ask for a new battery change. But there was a risk too, because not every battery change works. Sometimes, the key stops functioning altogether, if the key was not opened or closed in the correct manner.

It was a good walk that day when I walked a distance to my car from the office, to find out the battery died. I walked to the nearest watch shop I could remember, which was also a distance away. Then, I walked back to my car after that, hoping and praying the battery change works.

“Beep beep” as I pressed the button. Phew! I started thinking what would have happened if this battery died while I was far from any shop or if the shops were closed. I wouldn’t want to imagine the trouble that would have been to be stuck.

Lesson learnt…. Whenever I think about something, I must either do it or if I am not able to do it, I must set an alarm to remind me of the task. Alarms or reminders on the phone works, little stick-it-notes on the laptop or workstation work wonders too.

For example, in this case of the dead battery, I should have set an alarm to remind myself to change the moment I got home. We usually buy a couple of the spare batteries to keep. The spare batteries are cheap compared to changing it at the shop where they charge extra for labour.

I have the usual alarms to wake up and nowadays, I have multiple alarms and reminders to remind me of the many tasks. Tasks as simple as turning off the hot water switch or check to make sure that the lights and fans are off before going to bed or even a reminder to eat my vitamins at a specific time. It helps to stick to the same timing and the moment the alarm rings, it literally rings a bell on what is the pending task.

It is the same when it comes to thoughts. When I think about someone whom I have not contacted a long time and when the thought of catching up with them comes by, I would either call there and then or set an alarm to call at a later time.

There are also instances when I have thoughts on what to type to reply emails or write articles. If I am near my laptop, I would type whatever that comes to mind and save as draft. If I only have my phone, I would type it out too and save it as draft, and set an alarm to remind myself that I have an email to reply to or an article to finish writing.

It works and while I have many alarms and beautiful sounds ringing everyday, I am thankful and glad that we have this technology to help me through my absentmindedness.