These days, Aunty is doing well if she remembers the first letter of what it is she is trying to recall. The thing is, a person’s name sounds the sweetest and those few key details are most important to an individual. So I’ve found it does help if you try to remember a few personal details about those you are engaging with.
Aunty worked for a company that employed about two hundred people across twenty sites. I travelled around and tried to remember people’s names and a little personal information about each one. This was not an easy task but if I didn’t at least try, if I could not remember their name, what school their kids went to and where the wife shopped for shoes, the people I visited became upset with me. A person’s name, their label, is the sweetest word in their language. It is ego-related and very important to that individual. So it helps to remember their name if you want to make a good impression.
If someone cannot remember your name, remember this is not personal and doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. Do not allow your ego become offended.
Some people thrive by writing action lists, capturing all those things to do in print. Great satisfaction is then derived from crossing those actions off. I’ve even been known to have completed a task, write it down on my ‘To Do List’ then delight in crossing the same action off. This helps me to remember what I have to do, prioritise then remember what exactly I did on that day, that week. Other people, like my partner, like to keep every thing in their heads. They refuse to write things down. The problem with that is, things get forgotten. Those same people then have to rely on us list-writers to remind them of what they should have remembered!
As I go through the wonderful gravity-finding aging process, it does seem harder to remember things. Age does not make remembering things any less important. If it helps, write things down, but do try to remember.