Do you have trouble following instructions?

Post Reply New Topic

I get told to do multiple things at once and have to have it broken down for me or I will forget the list of things I was told to do. OR I don't hear the total comment for instance get out the cool whip and put it on the table" I heard "Get out the Cool Whip" I did IMO accidentally put it on the table them IMO corrected what I assumed was an error OMG! it'll go bad so I put it back in the freezer. Can anyone relate to not hearing all instructions or what's told of something for you to do?

Sure. I cant remember a simple tennis drill if i have some floating anxiety.

Here's my dilemma: I understand instructions perfectly, but I have the memory span of a goldfish.
I pick up new skills easily, learn quickly, but my short-term memory is ridiculously, well ... short xD

If I get given a string of commands, I end up only remembering the one I spent the most time trying to focus on (usually the first and/or the last).

If I am told "get out the cool whip and put it on the table" I will get out the Cool Whip and ask what the second part was. If I am doing one thing and pause to do something else, I will forget the first thing. So for me it would make sense, if I have a lot to do, to make a list of things to do. But I hate making lists, so I don't make lists. They don't do me any good because I don't like to follow lists. It's like forcing myself to go from one task to another until everything is done and that hurts my brain.

Oral instructions to often are non-linear and I think that's is why they can lose me.

In a hypothetical example maybe I'm asked to deliver a package. The person may be describing the directions and then change to securing the package and then remark about land marks I should like some old church I know nothing about.

verbal instructions of any complexity beyond one or two steps are very difficult for me to follow.

written instructions, as you would get with a piece of Ikea furniture or something, are not a problem.

im fine with written instructions but verbal instructions go in one ear and right out the other

I totally am the same. I'm told some instructions and by the end of it I can't remember what the beginning was :/ shocking auditory memory

What? I forgot the question.



No, seriously, I do have an awful memory for oral instructions.
You write it or show me - I got it! You tell me? N....nope.

I always have to understand the reason for the instructions as well as the instructions themselves. Just a bunch of steps with little or no reason for doing the steps just seems silly.

I remember the first one just fine. Add anymore and they are in one ear and right back out. I have multiple lists everywhere--some to remind me to look at the original ones.

gotta write em down. or else nothing good happens.

With Aunt Blabby on this one.

Do this and if that happens do that, but if something else happens do this instead, if nothing happens do the other thing instead.
Hang on I'll get a pen and write it down.

Funny thing is once I write it down I rarely need to refer back to it.

I'm definitely in the "gotta write it down" camp.

However, if handed written instructions, I have problems reading them, or breaking them down, or something. I almost always have to rewrite them for myself, step-by-step, so they'll make sense.

As a matter if fact, I've been doing that recently for a lot of my instructor's emails that go on and on, and then embedded somewhere will be directions for an assignment.

If I don't excavate his emails and his syllabi, I end up missing really important information.