

Saving information boosts human memory resources for new information - jonbaer
http://www.kurzweilai.net/saving-information-on-a-computer-boosts-human-memory-resources-for-new-information

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bjelkeman-again
Somewhat related, I find that if I am feeling stressed, I often write a list
of all the things that are cycling through my mind. I find that I often have
up to 20-30 items to process and the stress results from not being able to
hold them in my head att he same time.

Writing them down means the stress dissipates and I can get on with getting
things done. So saving information "off-head" clearly makes me more
productive, as I can focus on one thing at the time.

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mercer
The importance and value of getting 'stuff' out of my head was perhaps the
most valuable thing I got from reading 'Getting Things Done'. And even after
giving up on using the 'full' GTD approach, I've kept the core ideas of
'getting stuff out of your head' and 'making it as actionable as possible' in
my system.

(I also kept the 2-minute rule: if you can do it in 2 minutes, do it right
away.)

~~~
jmnicolas
Yes this is central to GTD : as long as you don't have everything recorded in
a trusted system, your brain will spend energy remembering it.

Hence the trusted system : if you know that you will not lose or forget the
data your brain can relax and focus on the task at hand.

Of course I saved this article in Evernote for later reading ;-)

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mark_l_watson
I was a huge fan, and paying customer, of Evernote for years. I gave it up and
have a system that fits my personal tastes/requirements a little bit better.

When I worked at Google last year I got used to using Google Drive heavily.
The search working inside Google's network basically accesses most of your
working environment - really nice. I am (mostly) retired now, and using Google
services like GDrive as an external user is not as nice, but getting there:
GDrive search indexes all of your documents, documents shared with you, and (I
think this may be a recent addition) all of Google+ (surprisingly useful since
I mostly have tech people in my circles).

My current "memory offload system" uses fine grained folders in Dropbox for
different things like business ideas, server notes, ideas for writing, and my
leanpub book manuscripts. For everything else I toss everything into GDrive
and rely on search. As other people have commented, it really clears the mind
to reliably store ideas for future use.

Note: earlier this year I tried the 30 day trial of Office 365. I found the
OneDrive storage and notes app to be pretty good. The support on my MacBook
Air, Android phone, and iPad was surprisingly good. I might convert over to
Office 365 someday.

~~~
jmnicolas
The problem for me is that I didn't find THE trusted system.

I use Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep and Simplest Reminder on Android but I'm
not satisfied with this motley organization.

I think the Apple ecosystem has better tools for GTD (Omnifocus, Things etc)
but right now I can't afford to change my systems.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I also really like the Apple ecosystem, and most of the OmniGroup products are
very good (I have used OmniGraffle for figures for many of the books I have
written) - I just upgraded my license, BTW.

However, OmniGroup does not support Android (which is reasonable). Comparing
my Galaxy Note 4 to friends' iPhone 6+ phones, I think it unlikely that Apple
will ever have me as a phone customer. Other companies like Microsoft, Google,
Dropbox, etc. support all types of devices very well.

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Marcus316
Memory has always been an interesting topic to me, and the "method of loci" as
described in the article is something that fascinates me, particularly because
I've never been able to really do it (not for lack of trying).

It has always surprised me when people talk about "mentally walking through a
well-known place". This kind of visualization has always been a struggle for
me. I find that I frequently cannot accurately remember even the most basic of
visual details. With practice, this has become easier for me, but still very
difficult. I will often mis-remember the basic shapes or colors of things. I
struggle to describe the visual aspects of things if they are not right in
front of me.

Audible memory, however, is a lot easier for me. I'm pretty good at mentally
going through sounds (not extremely good, but much better than my visual
memory) and especially lyrics and music.

I've considered adapting the method of loci to an audible equivalent
(attaching memory to audible cues in a soundscape), but I tend not to wander
through soundscapes in my mind ... I more often replay sounds in a linear
fashion, which doesn't seem to work very well when trying to "wander".

I suppose I don't necessarily need some sort of "memory palace" or equivalent,
at least not yet. My memory is pretty good ... adequate for what I need, with
reasonable error rates. I'm always curious about alternate methods for
expanding memory, though. Does anyone here have a method or trick to improve
their memory that they'd care to share with me?

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pain
Maybe memory processing is a social issue.

If so, terms of logging and saving might do justice for social media.

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dang
Url changed from [http://singularityhub.com/2014/12/20/one-small-experiment-
in...](http://singularityhub.com/2014/12/20/one-small-experiment-in-learning-
and-memory-one-giant-leap-for-mankind/), which points to this.

