------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 1, Issue 4 Ha! You thought I would forget again, didn't you? Well, OK, I almost did. The challenge, it seems is not so much finding tools to help us do our jobs, rather the difficulty lies in *remembering* to use them. It's just fortunate for me that I decided to click over to my "To Do" tab in my Google Homepage, or this one might have gotten past me, too! In This Issue... 1. Article: You Must Remember This... 2. Blog Posts 3. Guest Article: The Different Types Of Memory 4. Shameless Self-Promotion 5. The Fine Print 1. Article: You Must Remember This... One of the most ingenious inventions in the world of "Getting Things Done" has to be the Post-It(tm) note. So simple, so versatile, so useful. Now, if we could only figure out how to get that functionality and put it into our online world. I'm pretty good with remembering things -- especially if the happen pretty much every day. Still, even if I remember 90% of the things I have to remember, that still means I'm skipping meetings with one out of every ten clients. Probably not a good way to run a business. So, to help my already good memory, I've been slowly accumulating a number of other tools to bring my percentages close to 100%. You might want to check out some of these utilities. * Google Calendar. This is a big one for me. GCal allows you to maintain multiple individual calendars. Personally, I have about seven of them -- one for business, one for exercise and physical training, one for my personal life, etc. You can then display all of these together to help keep it all straight. All I have to do then is remember to check at the beginning of each day to find out what's going on. Even better if I check the night before. GCal also has the benefit of being able to share calendars. My wife, Lisa, and I share a couple of travel calendars so that we both know when the other will be out of the house. * To Do Gadget. I have a whole page of "To Do" lists on my Google Homepage. I have lists for projects (one for work and one for home), things to pick up when out on errands, thank you notes to write, and invoices that I need to send, among others. Since I am in front of my computer most of the time, this is about the most efficient way of keeping track of all of this stuff. The one thing it *doesn't* do well is keep track of recurring events. Which leads me to... * Remember the Milk. RTM is almost a calendar for date-specific to do items. Where GCal helps me organize my appointments, RTM reminds me of things I am supposed to do periodically, like produce this e-zine. It even has a gadget which can display on my Google Homepage. Very nice! Now, if it just had an email notification feature, that would really make my day. * BitPIM. This is a nice little piece of software which I think I mentioned a couple of issues ago. BitPIM allows me to transfer my GCal calendars and contact information to and from my LG enV cell phone. I try to remember to synchronize it each evening which means that when I meet people during the day, I can easily let them know when I am free to meet with them. That's the list as it is right now. Perhaps you've run into some other ones which I should know about. Someone mentioned jott.com to me the other day. Apparently it lets you call a number with your cell phone, leave a message for someone (including yourself) and the message will appear in their email as text. I'll have to check it out to let you know what I think. In the meantime, good luck on remembering all of your opportunities and blessings. Copyright 2007, Greg Peters 2. Blog Posts Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the last year: Sunday, April 02, 2006 -- Soundtrack for Your Life http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2006/04/soundtrack-for-your-life.html Sunday, December 10, 2006 -- Good Things: Free Hosting http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2006/12/good-things-free-hosting.html 3. Guest Article: The Different Types Of Memory By Eric Hartwell Memory, the brain's power to remember things, comes in different forms. Memory is not a tangible thing; it is not possible to 'improve' one's memory, per se. A person can develop his or her memory skills through practice, like playing guitar. A person's memory can be trained through active participation, paying attention to his or her weak areas of memory or remembering things and make a conscious effort to increase the capacity of his or her brain. Different domains or types of memory exist in the brain. A person can be very adept at remembering events in the past with great detail but forget where they left their wallet or keys. Like a database, memory is organized in different areas of the brain. A person, without effort, can remember their phone number, birthdates, the taste of chocolate, the sound of children playing, the scent of a rose, the knowledge of how to ride a bike, the feeling of fear and the intention to remember to pick up milk on the way home. Cognitive psychologists believe these bits of information are stored in multimodal systems of memory. These domains of memory are useful when considering the process of improving one's memory. Different memory strategies can be employed and matched with different memory tasks, using the knowledge of how pieces of information are encoded on the brain. Knowledge memory, the information about the world or external things, and personal memory, the information people know about themselves, are two fundamentally distinct domains of memory. In the domain of knowledge memory, information about music, numbers, language, stories or facts are stored. This includes a person's ability to remember words or a subject he or she has studied. Identity memory refers to the ability of a person to match a name with a face, attempting to remember who that person is, where and how that person is known by them and what the details of that person's life are. Event memory refers to a person's ability to remember whether or not they have done something, where they have put something, when and where something happened to them and remembering dates. Planning memory refers to a person's ability to remember to do something at a particular time or place, whether they can remember to remember to do something, for example, a person having the thought 'I was supposed to do something, I know I told myself to remember it, what is it, why am I standing here?' Skill memory refers to the ability to remember how something is done, a particular task, how to operate a camera, for example. With personal memory, a person retains autobiographical information, skill information, social information and planning information. Autobiographical memory incorporates information about oneself, what that person's details are that make them unique, the facts of their life, their experiences and their emotions. All of these bits of detail are processed differently and contained in different domains of memory in the brain. A person's memory for emotions can help a person change their mood. When a person has a strong memory for a specific event that they have experienced, the memory includes details specific to that occasion. As humans, we experience much of life in a routine fashion; these memories are contained in a generic memory- one which includes the common elements of the routine experience. Eric Hartwell oversees "The World's Best Homepage" intended to be a user-generated resource where YOUR opinion counts. Anybody can contribute and all are welcomed. Visit us to read, comment upon or share opinions on health and visit our associated site articles for free. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Hartwell http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Different-Types-Of-Memory&id=509242 4. Shameless Self-Promotion The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping nonprofit and charitable organizations develop their web presence for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your organization. 5. The Fine Print Questions: If you have any questions, concerns or comments regarding the Clearing Up the Confusion E-zine, please email Greg Peters at: gpeters@cyberdatasolns.com This content may be forwarded in full, with copyright and contact information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Greg Peters is required, with notification to the original author. We never send the "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-zine uninvited, and we NEVER share, sell or rent our mailing list to anyone. Your privacy is safe with us.