Monday Reset: The thought was there, and then it wasn't
This week’s focus: Remember without relying on your brain
You open your phone to send that message. By the time the app loads, you’ve completely forgotten what you were going to say.
You’re in the middle of a sentence and lose the thought entirely. It’s just... gone.
You walk into the kitchen for something specific. Stand there. Have no idea what you came for. Walk back. Remember. Walk to the kitchen again. Forget again.
Your Brain This Week
Your working memory, the brain’s ability to hold and use information for a short time, has a very small scratch pad where things get erased before you finish using them. This affects everything: conversations, tasks with multiple steps, remembering what you just read, keeping track of what you’re doing.
That’s why “just remember” or “try harder to focus” doesn’t work. Your brain literally can’t hold onto the information long enough to use it!
This Week’s Strategy: The Voice Memo Brain
Stop trying to remember things. Start capturing them the second they happen.
How it works:
Think about the moments when thoughts vanish. Mid-conversation when someone tells you something important. When you’re doing one thing and remember something else you need to do. When you have a great idea in the shower. When you’re about to text someone and forget what you wanted to say.
The moment you think of it, before you do anything else, you capture it externally. Your phone becomes your working memory.
Here’s what to do:
Pick ONE situation where you always lose information (ideas, tasks, what someone just told you)
Keep your phone’s voice memo or notes app ready (on your home screen)
The INSTANT you think of something, stop what you’re doing and record it:
Voice memo: Just hit record and say it out loud (faster than typing)
Quick note: Open notes and type the bare minimum
Text yourself: Send yourself a message with just the key word
Don’t try to organize it or make it perfect, just capture it before it disappears
Set one time each day to review what you captured (morning coffee, lunch break, before bed)
Why this helps: You’re not fighting your brain’s limitations anymore. You’re building an external working memory system. When information lives outside your head, you don’t have to use mental energy holding onto it. You can actually focus on what you’re doing right now.
I removed the flashlight app from my iPhone’s lock screen and replaced it with the voice memo app.
Flashlight is still available in my control center, so it’s still a swipe/click away!
I use WhatsApp to send a note to Capacities when I have these random thoughts. I wrote about it in my article on ADHD capture mechanisms.
What I need is a way to capture those random important thoughts that pop up when I’m speaking to someone or in an important meeting or driving when you can’t just pull out something to write down or record your thoughts. Any ideas?