This blog is an investigation of what difference it makes if I can remember every day that passes. It also explores the science around memory and the role of intermittent fasting in delaying memory loss and other effects of ageing.
It has been a while since I have posted on this blog about remembering every day that passes. As I have described in previous posts, the system of reviewing the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar became unsustainable after about ten years. It became harder to refresh the images. Perhaps if I was more adept at standard memorising techniques, of the sort that enable people to memorise…
In my ten-year update on this process of remembering every day that passes, I described the recall procedure I used to refresh the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. I changed approach in July. I now aim to recall a week from each of the past ten years, encompassing the current date. I have learned that dates 10 years ago are two days later. In other words, today is Monday, 19…
I began this process on 17 December 2011 and let the tenth anniversary pass without comment, so the time has come to reflect. Firstly, I continue with this process. Every day I record a memory tag on my mental calendar and regularly review past days. My current review process is to go through a month at a time per year. I'm currently on the month of September, remembering consecutive days of each…
It's great to see comments from people who have been inspired by this blog to try their own experiment in remembering every day that passes. People sometimes suggest different approaches - everyone has to find what works for them, which will probably change over time as the days pile up. I have just replied to a recent comment as follows: Thank you for your comment. Please keep us updated on how…
For a long time while following the process of remembering every day that passes, I had a policy of not keeping a diary and not making notes. I thought it would be good for my discipline to rely on my memory alone. True, I would sometimes have to look through photos on my phone or emails with travel details to help me recover the images for particular days if I got stuck, but generally the mental…
I continue with this process of remembering every day that passes. I am coming up to ten years now. However, it is getting harder to get through the review process and sometimes hitting blanks demotivates me from trying. But then, I'll have a good run or a particular day will be very important to me for the memories it brings or the fresh associations that arise. Something I have noticed is that I…
I completed a full review of my mental calendar from 17 December 2011 in December, taking a month and reviewing the images pinned to each day as memory tags for subsequent years. This brought me up to date. There were blanks, some of which I was able to complete as subsequent years or months triggered associations. The earliest years were the easiest to complete as I have reviewed them so many…
I was close to giving up on this process of remembering every day that passes as the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags became increasingly elusive. Then ditching my smartphone from my bedroom and spending my initial waking time meditating and on a review, I found the images coming back to me. This has continued as I have reverted to some of the review techniques I used in the…
I have ditched my smartphone from my wake-up routine and reverted to doing a morning run through of the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. This review had become increasingly perfunctory as I became distracted by doing a quick check for messages, news and, sad to say, bank balances. The more perfunctory, the harder to recall the images and less motivated I was to keep trying. It…
Two news reports caught my attention recently and have indirectly put new life into this process of remembering every day that passes. One said that giving attention to screens, particularly multiple screens – or "media multi-tasking" (such as scrolling through your phone while watching television) – is bad for the memory. Another said that a large percentage of people check their smartphones…
I began this process of remembering every day that passes over 3000 days ago. I continue to pin an image to my mental calendar at the end of every day as a memory tag. But as I've been recording here, it has become increasingly harder to refresh the images. Several times I've thought of giving it up as an experiment that has reached its natural end. But I haven't. During the current coronavirus…
Like half the planet I am currently on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. As I am living with someone who is in an at-risk group, I am not going out at all, other than for a walk around the grounds of our apartment block. Days are pretty repetitive. But there's always something to single out as a memory tag. I've been using the opportunity of knowing people will most likely be at home to…
I'm approaching the 3000 day milestone in this process of remembering every day that passes. It continues, but has changed significantly from the early months and years, when I could review the images pinned to my mental calendar in a short period of time. My early techniques of a moving windows, pulling up a few days from past weeks or months to refresh them have long gone. Now I generally work…
Remembering every day that passes continues to be part of my routine. To stop the days for nearly eight years I've been doing this now from fading, I call up the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. The techniques I used in the early months and years, as described in the "how I remember" posts can no longer cope with the volume. Instead of moving windows recalling images from a few…
Opening Facebook sometimes on my phone, I get one of those reminder messages of something I posted two, five, seven years before, or whatever. Before scrolling down to take a look, I take a few moments to scan through my mental calendar to predict what it will be. Usually, I can figure it out. When I can't it's generally because it's a photo from a running road race I took part in a few days…
I've not read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers: The Story of Success", but I've come across the theory that an expert at anything is not an innate genius, but has practised for an average of 10,000 hours. This has been attacked as over-simplified or plain wrong, but it has revolutionised by attempts to learn to play the piano. I have tried to learn the guitar, piano and even penny whistle many…
I'm now over seven years into this process of remembering every day that passes, having started on 17 December 2011. I've had to adapt the refresh process to review the images pinned to my mental calendar, but I still aim to revisit each day once per month. Sometimes an image evades me now. But, even so, I do not accept they are fully lost, because on a subsequent run-through, I've had them come…
It's a while since I've posted here, so this is to check in to say that this process of remembering every day that passes continues as I near the 7 year landmark on 17 December. I continue to use the same methods discussed here to add memory tags to my mental calendar, reviewing the past month, morning and evening, and calling up a selection of days preceeding that. Sometimes I'll use a two or…
For over six years I have been pinning images to a mental calendar as memory tags to remember every day that passes. To prevent these fading away, I find I have to review them within a month or so. This simply involves calling up the image, which may take a few seconds. Less, if I have a sequence of related images. I now have over 2300 days to recall since December 17, 2011, and the review…
I began remembering every day that passes on 17 December 2011. The sixth anniversary has passed and here we are in 2018, over 2200 days later. I'm still going strong, though recently switched the nature of the long recall of days I do every month to refresh the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. Last time, I start on 1 January 2016 and went through the whole year, day by day. Then…
I can remember each of the 2000+ days since I began this process of remembering of every day that passes. Lembransation works, but I need to spend some time each day recalling the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags or they will fade. The posts tagged with "how I remember" show how my methodology has changed over time. Recently, I have made bigger changes to make it more relaxed.…
I now have over 2000 days of my mental calendar with memory tags to help me remember them. As I look back on events over the five plus years since I began this process of remembering every day that passes, it is increasingly striking how much of this time would have faded to nothing. As with earlier years, I may have only retained a sense of the year and a few key events. My sister's wedding and…
Anyone who read of the experiment I began in January 2016 of imagining I had 18 months left to live (the period David Bowie had lived after his diagnosis of cancer) may have wondered what happened when the deadline of 29 May 2017 arrived. Well, I am still here, is the good news. We were on holiday and it was with a little nervousness that I drove us to our destination on that Monday imagining it…
My memory tag for 11 January 2016 is learning that David Bowie had died of cancer. It was reported that he had a prognosis of 18 months to live before this and had spent his remaining days revisiting places with his family, recording a new album (to be launched a matter of days before he died), and preparing a stage show, Lazarus, featuring his music. As a philosophical exercise, I wondered how it…
I am trying to learn to play the guitar once again. I've never progressed very far with it. I've also tried keyboards, but again stalled. I can follow music, but don't have an ear for music. My singing wanders around all over the place as I am not really aware when I'm in tune. A singing teacher at a class for poor singers I attended one time asked if we had an experience when we were told we…