Remember Appointments By Creating Associations

Quick Win

Simple mnemonic strategies can help ensure you don’t forget upcoming events.

Try This Today

• To keep a date in mind, associate it with an image. For example, if you have an appointment in February, think of a heart for Valentine’s Day. If your appointment is on a Sunday, think of an ice cream sundae.
• Create a rhyme or song to help you remember it. Don’t worry if it’s silly. For a doctor’s appointment on the 29th of the month, rhyme “appointment” with “ointment” and say, “For my appointment, I’ll need 29 ointments.”
• Think in color. If you’re invited to a 4th of July party, visualize yourself wearing red, white and blue on that date.

Why

Remembering to do something that you planned for the future is known as prospective memory. Our prospective memory skills tend to decline with age, but mnemonic devices like the ones above can help keep your important engagements front of mind, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of 48 studies involving more than 2,900 participants age 60 and older, published in Neuropsychology Review in 2022.