I forget things. I get embarrassed. I turn seven shades of red. When it comes to recalling little details, my mental engines sometimes fail. I’m not sure if it’s age or just the fact that I have accumulated more names, faces, and facts with each passing year, making recall an ever-increasing challenge. I can meet someone face-to-face, turn around, meet someone else, and by the end of that last conversation have forgotten who it was I met only minutes before. I do an absolutely impressive job of forgetting, and conversely, a terrible job of remembering. The problem only gets worse when I fool myself into thinking I can remember something and recall it whenever I want. Who the heck am I kidding?
Sound familiar? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve observed this so often with others that I’ve come to accept it as a common affliction. In fact, I think there are three kinds of people in this world, when it comes to memory: those with photographic memory, those without it, and those who think they have it but don't. If you’re not sure which you fall into, try this quick litmus test: Try to recall every activity from last week in which you participated with others and list, without error, every person’s name and the date and time at which every single event occurred. How did you do?
Welcome to the club!
Rather than blame genetics, I choose to do something about my less than perfect memory. If I want to be perceived by others as a professional, which I do, I have to go above and beyond. As I like to say, “there’s no traffic jam on the extra mile.” Professionalism takes time, practice, and consistency. Gaining that competitive edge requires investment. As with any area of professional growth, we should invest in our relationships. After all, people matter, and improving the quality of our relationships is an investment worth making.
So, how does this apply to my never-ending struggle to remember everything that I know about everyone that I deal with? My approach is simple. I need only to remember one thing. I can forget everything else. Even I can remember one thing. And once I’ve entered it into VIPorbit on my iPhone, I can safely forget about it!
Meet someone new? Create a record for them. Learn something new about an existing contact? Enter it in a custom field or as a note on their contact record. Schedule a meeting, lunch, or phone call? Create the activity on my calendar and record any other info I might need to reference before or during the activity. I can even set reminders for things like birthdays, anniversaries, or just to stay in touch.
Once I enter the information in VIPorbit, I can safely forget about trying to remember! And all that vital contact data is safe...and in the palm of my hand. Even more importantly, it’s searchable by any number of ways for instant recall. All the information I need on the device I already carry with me 24/7. Win! Appear to everyone else as if I have a photographic memory? Now that investment has amazing ROI!
