Possumblog

HEY! I remembered to bring my new calendar today!

But, I forgot it was Thursday. Which means today’s Axis of Weevil Thursday Three will start the New Year off in tepid fashion with a Slapdashed-Together Edition of America’s Favorite Online Questionnaire!

Scrounging around through my desk drawer and underneath the file cabinet, I found some vowels and consonants, which I have skillfully assembled using a nearly dried-out glue stick and a twist tie to come up with these questions. We ask that you use caution as you answer them, because the glue isn’t really sticking things together all that well.

ANYway, here we go:

1) What is the most important thing you ever forgot to do?

2) Do you try to keep yourself organized through a routine so you don’t have to rely so much on remembering things, or do you follow a more open approach based on what you want to get done during the day and try to actually think things through?

3) What do you have the most trouble remembering--people’s names, how to get places, or important dates?

Okeedoke--all of you go off and answer! Either leave your answers in the comments below, or leave a link to your blog post.

As for my answers--

1) Thankfully, I haven’t devolved to the point where I forget REALLY important things. Life-and-death, job-related things I can still pretty much keep together. There have been meetings I have forgotten about, and minor details left undone, and occasional bills left unpaid, and I sometimes get sidetracked and forget to order material for the classes at church, but nothing that causes real headaches. Probably the worst thing I ever forgot to do was to remember that frozen biscuit dough should never be separated with a knife.

2) I have a slim routine, mainly because I do have such a fit with minor memory lapses. I keep telling myself that if I really, REALLY think hard about what I have to do and do it out of necessity rather than rote, it will keep me from becoming too familiar with a routine, which I think makes it harder to react in a timely manner to important stuff. That might not be right, but it seems to work okay for me on keeping the big stuff working. Minor details that might be covered if I had a more rigorous routine (writing thank-you notes, remembering names) would get done better, but my life is so full of last minute changes that I figure it’s better to let some of the smaller things go in favor of keeping the bigger ones herded in the right direction.

3) Names are probably the worst, and it goes back to #2--in the greater scheme of things, it’s a detail that just gets left off the list. I remember the people themselves, and what they do, and where I know them from, but it takes me a while before I can accurately remember their names. And yes, I know all the mnemonic tricks you’re supposed to use to do this, but I guess I figure if I eventually get it, it’s okay. Dates are another thing that I don’t do all that well with--anniversary, yes. Reba’s birthday, yes. My birthday, yes. Important dates in history, yes. Everything else, including kids’ birthdays, my mom’s or sister’s birthdays, not so well.

So, there you go.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 5, 2006 08:16 AM