This is something I may have learnt from someone here, or perhaps elsewhere, or made up myself. Really was a while ago I first started using this.
I find that I can forget significant thoughts, conversations, and concepts quickly. This always bothered me, as often these thoughts/conversations/realisations were significant.
Anyway, this is the trick I wanted to talk about, and perhaps it’s what everyone/a lot of people just naturally do, but I had to learn it;
I will find myself realising that I have forgotten a particular thing, most of the time it will be an important train of thought, or realisation. What I will do is trace back to anything at all surrounding the last time I think I knew what this thought was.
For example, I was driving to work and realised that a very significant idea had occurred to me yesterday, and I can’t remember it. So, I placed myself mentally back into when I thought it had happened; talking with Syd via video. Then, I just let thoughts come. Oh, we talked about topic “A”, then, “B” then back to “A”, and then, Bingo, the thought comes back to me.
I do this with conversations too. I will trace back through the conversation with someone when talking to them. “I said this, then you said that, and then we talked about this topic”
I enjoy this skill. I learnt it at some point, and now it’s a regular tool I will roll out to remember!