COLUMN: Remember not to forget

I forget everything.

I am constantly forgetting my keys, my wallet and even on occasion I have forgotten to put on shoes before I walk out the door. I have managed to lose everything I own from term papers to my car and I’ve even managed to forget entire conversations I’ve had with people, so I end up saying the same thing twice. (Forgive me if I’ve already written this column once … I probably forgot about it.)

I have finally accepted that I need to have an extra set of the necessities at my parents’ house because inevitably, every time I go home for a weekend, I forget something. I have a second phone charger, an extra toothbrush, superfluous blow dryers, two spare pillows, another set of makeup, an extra coat and multiple outfits kept at my parents house. But still, inevitably, I forget something new every time I go home, so my collection of back-ups is always expanding.

This is not a new problem for me. I have always been forgetting and losing things since before I can remember. When I was little, my mother learned to expect my call from school almost daily asking her to bring my books, my bag and/or my homework.

For this reason, I live by writing things down. Life is too busy for me to remember everything, so if it doesn’t fit in my head, it gets written down; if it’s not written down, inevitably, I will forget it. There are a few things in life I have tried to train myself to remember the hard way, for example:

• Remember to call your mother. She has trained me well on this one, but everyone should remember to call their mother every once in a while especially when they don’t need something, just to check in.

• Remember to do your dishes. This is especially applicable if you have roommates. Don’t leave the dishes sitting on the counter for weeks at a time, if you do, they might get thrown away when you’re not looking.

• Remember to eat. This might sound silly, but if you’re anything like me, you’ve got to write this one down too, otherwise you finally get to the end of the day and while lying in bed, your stomach starts to rumble and you remember you’ve forgotten something very vital.

• Remember the birthdays of all your family and friends. This is one of the first things that goes in my planner. Also, be especially sure to write down all birthday and anniversaries of significant others or spouses.

• Remember where you parked your car. Believe me, this will save you a lot of time if you find a landmark in each parking lot. After standing in a parking lot, by myself, at 11 p.m., looking like the biggest idiot in Logan, finding a landmark is the only way to go.

• Remember what time your finals are, but just in case you show up at your final two minutes before it ends, I’ve got a couple excuses that seem to work pretty well.

• Remember where you put your textbooks. I lost one this weekend – the only problem is I have a midterm in that class today…wish me luck!

• Remember where your keys are at all times. I swear they have the ability to walk off in the middle of the day. One day in particular, they walked out of my school bag and into my boot at home.

• Remember just a few phone numbers in case you break your phone. This has only happened to me once, but I’ve never felt so inept when I realized I couldn’t remember the phone number of a single person except for my parents, but when you run out of gas in Logan, parents who live a couple hours away can’t help very much … which leads me to my next tip.

• Remember to put gas in your car. No, you can’t make it to school just one more time.

If writing it down doesn’t work for you, then you can try tying a string to your finger, but my problem is I can never remember why the string is there and I rip it off before I remember the reason I put it there in the first place. You can set alarms for yourself in your phone, ask others to remind you or place sticky notes around your room and office. If all else fails, do what you did in kindergarten and safety pin a note to your shirt. Do something to remember the little things that, if you’re not careful, you might forget.

Above all, never forget to … um … I just had it … always remember to … dang it! Oh well, maybe I’ll remember later.

Pass it on.

Emma Tippetts is a senior in print journalism and law and constitutional studies. Comments and questions

can be sent to

etippetts@cc.usu.edu