Trouble remembering things?

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Even when I was a little kid I had trouble remembering things. I was always getting in trouble for being intentionally bad, when actually I truly wasn't remembering to do or not do things. I never had trouble remembering my special interest things, but even today I am certain to fail if I rely on my memory to take the garbage out a certain day, for example. I have a reminder app on my phone that tells me every work morning to sign my timesheet, and to get a certain check out of the safe every Thursday - that sort of thing. In fact, I have more than 2 dozen such repeated tasks set on my phone at any given time, because if my phone doesn't remind me, there's no telling how long till I remember on my own. Then I look like an incompetent idiot at work, and I'm seen as "lazy" or "inconsiderate" at home.

Is this part of being an aspie, or something else? I'm generally healthy, above-average intelligent, and so on (so no immediately, superficially obvious other reason for this). The only thing that sometimes help is total routine, but even that can fail quite easily.

I do remember important appointments, but other than that I have no sense of time. If I don't have any appointments, I usually don't even know which day of the week it is since I don't work anymore. Sometimes I try to go shopping on Sundays or public holidays and wonder why all stores are closed.

I can never remember people's birthdays, and I've missed my own birthday a few times because I didn't pay attention to the date. I also have trouble dating events that lie in the past. For example, I can't tell in which year I started to work at which place and for how many years I stayed there. It's all a blur in hindsight.

Same here, I also got scolded a lot for not remembering certain things, it mostly were some household chores assigned to me in advance, same applied for long term homeworks. Even my mother, otherwise very supportive, told me something like: "You did not forgot it, you simply do not think enough about it" (I hope it does make sense, I am not sure about the correct translation here). Other than that I was told that I have a pretty good memory, so I understand why it bothered her that much.

I do not know if this applies for you, but for me I think that the main cause of this is that my mind is almost always occupied with thinking about something (I still do not know how to voluntarily switch off my thinking process). Because of that, the only way to retrieve some specific information from memory is to focus this thinking process to the area associated with that information. The problem is, that it is impossible to willingly switch the focus of the thought process in a certain direction, the only way how to do it is to create some external reminder, that will switch the focus of the thought process to the area that is associated with the information I want to retrieve, or otherwise associate that information with some already existing thing. I think it seems now pretty logical, that without associating, the chances of retrieving any important but to me uninteresting piece of information would be very difficult, especially when the information is form the area I am not interested in (so I do not think about it much often, or at all). Therefore, information such as birthdays, appointments regarding subject I do not particularly enjoy, homeworks, etc. must be properly associated, because otherwise they do not come into the focus of my mind at all.

Other thing that might also contribute to this problem is that I have severely distorted sense of time; I must usually plan ahead even on a daily basis, otherwise I am not able to do anything on time. I also must translate longer time periods (especially those regarding deadlines) to weeks or, more prefferably, days, since I would not be able to subjectively evaluate, how much time is left.

a lot of that sounds very ADHD-ish to me. i have the same prob and i was dx'ed as ADHD [inattentive subtype] as an adult, before i learned i also had AS. but i've never been able to remember stuff without writing it down and putting notes to myself all over the place. my dad never forgave me for forgetting to relay to him a job offer that came over the phone. but for some reason there was never a notepad where the phone was, so how was i supposed to remember all that info [phone# of potential employer, address, time to report, et al] without writing it down?

Wow...sounds familiar! I pretty much suck at remembering to do things outside of my daily routine...especially remembering to inform people of phone calls I've taken for them. I know I should write a message, but sometimes I don't think to.

I'm quite good at remembering years though...I associate them with wrestling events/happenings, so I can usually get there in the end.

"You did not forgot it, you simply do not think enough about it"

I get it, I remember everything eventually, I just forget to remember at the right time, that has caused me no end of trouble. It's not stress or anxiety, but just mind wandered onto other things or engaged in an interest.

Jason,

This ^. I forget to take out the rubbish/birthdays/phone calls/peoples faces/names. Sometimes I can go to the shop to buy something, this item will be the whole point of the trip, and I will forget to buy it and end up with 2 bags full of other stuff I didn't need. Most recently I forgot to buy coffee even though that's why I went. If I need to remember something then I have to write it down. Even when I need to remember something for just a few minutes I can forget, even when all I try and think about is what I need to remember. For the last 2 days all I have been thinking when I leave the shower is "bring some more toothpaste upstairs, the tubes running low", took me 2 days before I remembered. I can walk home and see bin bags on the street and know full well that it's bin night, from the time it takes for me to walk down my 20 foot driveway I have completely forgotten.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouubuoHtrF4[/youtube]

This will be me in 10 years

Exactly! If I want to remember to take the garbage out next morning, I have to leave it blocking the front door so I can't get out without interacting with it. That's one kind of thing that helps.

I also have to have a watch that tells me the day of the week or I can't remember if it's Thursday or whatever, even during my work week.

One thing I have to do too though is vary my regular reminders on my app, or they also become just more background noise and i forget them too. My current app I've set to harass me every 10 minutes all day until I finally turn each alarm off. Otherwise I see the alarm, swear I'm ok to remember now, and then turn it off and totally forget.

I don't like using the term OMG but OMG. People at work wonder why I leave things in the way and they don't realise that if I don't then I'll forget to remember to do the thing that the particular item involved. I sometimes leave certain items (that I can later associate with a memory when I see them) next to things I use on a regular basis in order to remember to do things. This really is a great idea and helps me out greatly, even if sometimes the things I need to remember are left for me to trip over - to hell with health and safety, I need to remember to take that shower gel upstairs and I walk past my door all the time!

My long term memory rocks, short term memory doesn't, so I usually end up forgetting things I have to do all the time.

Sometimes even things I do on a daily basis are easily forgotten ...

Computer based reminders are a life saver, I put reminders in for any important events now, synced across a few different devices, so i tend to make a lot of weird buzzing noises all the time.

I have made a point of refusing to take an appointment card any more, I just stick it straight in an iThing. At work I always request a meeting request or it doesn't go in the calendar..

Jason

Sometimes I jokingly "blame" my bad memory on having ADD. Like if I'm taking a shower and forget to wash the shampoo out of my hair before getting out, I'll be like, "stupid ADD!". Heh.

in the book Take Control Of Asperger's Syndrome: The Official Strategy Guide for Teens With Asperger's Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disorders the authors suggest that it is not an issue with memory at all - they suggest it is an issue with distraction and focus on other things.

They suggest audible alarms on a cell phone or other device as a primary way of dealing with these pesky "memory issues" we all seem to have.

I was talking about the whole garbage in front of the door thing with my co-habitant fiance a couple of months ago when we moved in together.

I told her that it isn't that i don't see the garbage bag by the door - i do see it. I see it, i can recite the shape, the size, the position, the weight of the plastic the bag is constucted of, the colour, the likely costs of the box or bag of bags it came from.

i just won't think "Why is the bag lying there?" until i am actually thinking about garbage. If i am not thinking about clearing the room of grabage i won't recognise any item - even a garbage bag - as garbage - it just becomes part of the environment - noted, catalogued, analysed, but i miss the all important "WHY is it there?" unless i am specifically thinking about the question "Why is it there?"

I forget stuff a lot. Here are some examples today.

This morning my breakfast was sitting on the stove cooling and I walked from the living room to the kitchen to get it and bring it in the living room. I then walked right by the stove, went in my room and checked on my rats, and went back to the living room without my food. I had to go back out and get it.

I'm supposed to bring in the paper on Friday. I remembered it today but some weeks I don't think of it until I see my mother walking in with it in her hand.

Just the opposite. I remember everything. It really sucks.

i remember everything too...

just not when i am supposed to