Remember more, or choose to forget?

I talk a lot on here about efforts to improve my memory by using tools like Anki. I believe that knowing some things by heart is important.

On the other hand, I have an extensive notes database that I constantly manicure ( currently in Tana) so that I have a record of things that I want to be able to reference later.

It’s a bit of a contradiction, but I’m ok with that. In a recent post, my friend Bill shared a simple quote: “ We write things down so we can forget them. “, and I really like comparing that to my system.

Generally speaking, all of my notes go in Tana — these could be from books, meetings, sermons, or anything else. Everything goes in there so that I can reference it later when needed. Some small pieces, though, are put into Anki so that I can remember them. It stands to reason, then, that notes I put into Tana (but not into Anki) are things that I don’t want to remember but I want to be able to potentially reference in the future.

Intentional forgetting

As Bill points out in his post, a great example of this “intentional forgetting” is for things like calendar appointments. When I add a meeting for next month on a Tuesday at 3:30, I absolutely don’t want to carry that around in my head — I just want Google Calendar to remind me about it when it’s time.

Another great example is the old thought from David Allen that you should “ only think about cat food once “. If you need something from the store like cat food, write it on a list and get it out of your head.

In talking about Anki years ago, I said that some things are worth remembering.

Beyond that, clearly, some things aren’t.

Originally published at https://www.mickmel.com on November 18, 2022.