Use Technology As A Brain Crutch

Do you have too many of those "now what was I doing?" moments? Can't remember that great idea you had just a moment ago?

On a recent MacBreak Weekly podcast, veteran radio / tv / tech guy Leo Laporte remarked:

"You know, it's actually encouraging for those of us, as we get older, because now ... technology is designed to take over where our brains leave off. I use 'Google-assisted memory' all the time. I don't remember anything, but I can find it fast."

When I heard that, I thought "there's a LifeTwo story in there -- covering the ways technology can aid less reliable middle-aged brains." Unfortunately, I then forgot about the idea for a few days ... proving the need for this article.*

Use a Phone That's Smarter Than You Are

The best technological fix to an erratic memory is a smart phone. It should have email and text messaging for communication, and sync its calendar and address book with your computer. A camera will come in handy, as we'll see. The Handspring Treo series fits the bill nicely, but there are plenty of alternatives.

How can you use it?

Parking in a crowded parking lot? Use the phone to take a photo of the aisle number, if it exists, or just snap an overview that will help you later. If you have a GPS-enabled phone and know how to use it, make a waypoint ... you'll be able to find your way back to your car from anyplace on Earth (h/t: Merlin Mann in this MacBreak Weekly).

See something that you're afraid you'll forget? Use the camera, or send yourself a SMS message, or send yourself an email. I do this all the time at retail stores where I suspect the product is overpriced -- I'll look for a better deal from home. Depending on your phone, you may also be able to record a voice memo.

Need a phone number, address, or other snippets of information? If you can send an SMS message, you've got access to directions, flight info, movie times, and a lot more, all provided by Google SMS. Send a message to 466563 ('GOOGLE') using the formats shown here. Hint: send the message 'help' and you'll get back a list of some of the possibilities. A full list is at their web site.**

Syncing

You can make your smartphone even more powerful if you sync it to your computer. Your calendar, address book, and to-do list will be available to you on both devices. Here are a few ideas to make this more useful:

- use calendar alerts to remind you of birthdays, anniversaries, and other dates you can't afford to miss.

- don't trust your brain -- put as much information as you can into your address book. If you've entered spouses names and children, a quick search on the smartphone can help avoid embarrassing moments. You can also use categories, or freeform notes and the phone's search capability, to help you remember the names of your daughter's friend's parents.

- make notes of things you'll probably need to remember again. Will you need to remember the dimensions of your front window? Enter it and you'll be able to look it up the next time you're at Home Depot.

- most smartphones have search capabilities. It's up to you to enter the information you don't want to forget or misplace, and to enter it in a way that's retrievable.

The iBrain

If you've got an iPod that you carry more often than a cell phone, some of these tricks still work. You can sync your calendar and address book from your computer to the iPod (but can't, of course, enter new information, or do a search). There are even accessories available so that you can record voice memos with the iPod (see here and here).

Brain Help While Sitting

Your computer is a less mobile, but more capable, memory support tool. An underused feature is desktop search. Windows Vista's Search Explorer and Mac OS X's Spotlight allow for reasonably fast searching for words and phrases inside documents stored on your hard drive. They can also search by characteristic -- for instance, "a .doc file that I saved in October with the word 'final' in the title."

There are alternatives to these built-in search tools. Google Desktop (Windows and OS X) lets you construct fast Google-like searches for almost anything stored on your computer, and it presents them in a web browser just like 'normal' Google searches of the web. On the Mac, MoRU and Spotlaser allow you to build better Spotlight searches.

If you can't remember the name of that website you visited last week, make your browser keep its history longer. In Firefox, under Preferences / Privacy, change "remember visited pages for the last __ days." Google Desktop will also quickly search your recent browsing history. You could also bookmark sites you want to remember, either locally or to a site like del.icio.us. The advantage of the latter is that you can 'tag' the site with any words that will help you either categorize or remember the site.

There are websites that can help your fading memory. Are there mystery names in your contact database or address book -- people you must have known at one time, but now can't remember? LinkedIn helps you track people you’ve worked or done business with. You invite someone, or they invite you, and if you both agree, you are part of each others 'networks' forever. The site links their name to their work history so it’s easy to remember how you know these people and to reconnect with them when you need to.

Online banking and / or auto-bill pay aren't new, but having your recurring monthly bills paid automatically is one less thing you have to remember. And now you can even pay your credit card bill automatically -- if you dare (Citibank and American Express, among others, offer this service).

And while watching TV is unlikely to help your memory -- unless you're watching Jeopardy! -- you can use a Tivo or other DVR to automatically record your favorite shows. An added bonus: you'll never have to remember how to program a VCR again. It will become a lost and unmourned art, like cleaning an LP.

Technology may even be able to improve your memory. We've written about brain training software (here, here, and here). While researchers debate whether the brain has a "use it or lose it" problem, it seems clear that mental exercise isn't going to hurt -- so why not try it?

Or You Could Go Back To Basics

There are non-tech ways of organizing what you need to remember. A cult has grown up around the 3x5 index card (now with binder clips!) -- see the seminal post "Introducing the Hipster PDA" at productivity blog 43folders.

Umm, What Was The Point Again?

Let's see -- I wrote it down. Here it is: if you've got a smartphone that you sync to your computer, and are fairly disciplined about entering stuff you might need to remember into one or the other, you've got a brain backup. And if your everyday brain is getting a little suspect, isn't having a backup a good idea?

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* For a look at what's going on inside your middle-aged brain, visit our Brain Health section. A good recent book is journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin's "Carved in Sand," in which she not only looks at the physiology of midlife brains, but puts herself through a slew of treatments to find out which work best for her. One key finding: don't multitask!

** At the risk of sounding like a Google PR spokesperson, Google Maps Mobile also helps find local businesses ... and it displays them on a map (of course), and shows traffic information, and does about five other cool things.