Tips for memory difficulties | Equality and Diversity Unit

Write things down, so that you don’t have to keep remembering them. ‘Buy birthday card!’ ‘Milk!’
Collect a list of questions to ask your manager, rather than constantly interrupting.
Put a note where you need it e.g. for things to do on the way home, put the reminder on your bag; put notes for a particular meeting with the papers for that meeting.
Use apps such as Toodledo https://www.toodledo.com/
Diary reminders (you can use these to schedule tasks as well as meetings).
Avoid multitasking, and try to complete each task before starting the next.

Depending on your role you may want yearly, termly, monthly or weekly plans.
Make a daily task list (you may have a standard list, to which you add extra items).
Schedule work for particular times. Some people like to do the most complex tasks first thing in the morning, when they are freshest.
Schedule time for particular tasks, if you find it difficult to get the time for them.
Remember to keep checking your plan, and record any new tasks.
Improve your ability to judge how much time to allow by recording how much time jobs actually take.

In many administrative and finance roles, it is helpful to set up systems (or use existing systems) so that you can easily check what work has already been done.
Before you deal with an item, check what has already happened (to avoid paying the same invoice twice).
Create a record of what tasks need to be done for recurrent activities e.g. those that happen on a monthly or yearly basis. This will prompt you next time.

Give your resources a permanent home, and always put them back in the correct place.
Take regular time to do your filing, so that you can find materials again.
Use trays and folders (physical and electronic) to organise your flow of work.
Talk to your colleagues to create systems that work for everyone.
Make sure that when you are dealing with something you also record what you have done, and put it in the right place e.g. the file for paid invoices.

Break your overall plan into smaller sections, then when you are ready to work break those sections into manageable chunks, then concentrate on one at a time. “The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”
Some people make a visual overview of the whole, so they can see where their current chunk fits in.
Find out how long you can concentrate for (which might be as short as 15 minutes). Design chunks to last that long.
Set your timer, concentrate on the chunk, and when the timer goes stop and take a brief minibreak to allow your brain to recover.
Tick the chunk off, then start the next chunk.
This technique helps you to make progress, even on days when you are struggling. You can revise your work next day.

Check that you have understood correctly e.g. ‘So the first thing is for me to …’
Do not rely on remembering verbal instructions. Ask for a written reminder, to which you can refer.
Some people make audio recordings, to which they can listen again.
If the instructions are about an activity in the future, you may want to create a reminder that you will see when you come to start the task. E.g. Put a post-it on a form ‘waiting for authorisation from X’.

Make an overview and keep it by you so that you can see where you are in a process.
Use mindmaps to map a subject and see the connections.
Use colour, pictures, icons.
Use screenshots and photographs in instructions.
Use flow charts.
In Outlook use colours to mark status, and flags
Use crib sheets, screen shots, check lists.
Think of a visual image and also visualise words beneath it e.g. when trying to remember someone’s name, think of their face with their name written below.

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