Kit day
You have forgotten your kit three times this term. You keep meaning to remember.
What actually helps?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Two things at once
You have a piece of work due Thursday and a trip form due Wednesday. You have written down neither.
What do you do?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Memory is bad at this. Everybody’s is. People who never forget things are not remembering better, they are writing things down.
One place
One list, one diary, one spot for everything due. Two systems means neither gets checked.
Pack the night before
Deciding what you need is a thinking job. Doing it in the morning, in a rush, is when things get left.
The door test
Before you leave, one look: have I got everything for today? Two seconds, and it catches most of it.
Step 3: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
You are told about something due next Friday. What is the best thing to do?
Step 4: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
One place, one week
- Pick one place for everything due — a notebook, a phone list, one page.
- Put everything in it for a week.
- Check it every evening.
Why: One week is enough to notice how much you were carrying around in your head.
Step 5: What You Learned
- Write things down. Everybody’s memory is bad at this.
- One place for everything due.
- Pack the night before and check at the door.
For the grown-up
A child who forgets things repeatedly usually has no system, not a character flaw. Providing a system is more effective than any amount of reminding, and it transfers.
The trap is becoming the system yourself. Every reminder you give is a reason for them not to build one, which shows up sharply at secondary school.
Letting a forgotten item have its natural consequence occasionally, where safe, teaches more in one afternoon than a term of prompting.