Short term memory

The most impor­tant com­po­nent of mem­ory is atten­tion. By choos­ing to attend to some­thing and focus on it, you cre­ate a per­sonal inter­ac­tion with it, which gives it per­sonal mean­ing, mak­ing it eas­ier to remem­ber.

Elab­o­ra­tion and rep­e­ti­tion are the most com­mon ways of cre­at­ing that per­sonal inter­ac­tion. Elab­o­ra­tion involves cre­at­ing a rich con­text for the expe­ri­ence by adding together visual, audi­tory, and other infor­ma­tion about the fact. By weav­ing a web of infor­ma­tion around that fact, you cre­ate mul­ti­ple access points to that piece of infor­ma­tion. On the other hand, rep­e­ti­tion drills in the same path­way over and over until it is a well-worn path that you can eas­ily find.

Our brain (and memory) is like a muscle: "Use it or loose it !".  If you want to improve your short term memory make exercises every day.  The more you do it the better it will be. 

I'm naturally like that too. I have learned there are certain things I tend to forget I have done and then worry about. An example is locking the door when I leave the house. I can get ten mile down the road and there's a sudden panic. "did I lock the door?" I won't be able to remember whether I have or not, so back I go to check. Invariably I have locked it, but couldn't recall doing it. The way I dealt with it was by remembering that there are certain situations when this happens and to take particular note of it at the time. So I would lock the door and say to myself out loud "I am locking the door." I might do this several times, until I am sure it has registered and it will not worry ten miles down the road. So I have programmed myself to do this in these certain situations. It's a bit cumbersome, but it gets around the problem. I have since got onto a website that has helped a lot. It's http://www.memory-loss-treatment.com/ One thing I found there is a supplement called Pycnogenol. It's a natural product and it has worked wonders for me. I can lock the door without going through my routine now. It just gets locked in my brain the way I suppose it does for normal people and I don't ever get the worries. I took up one of the courses on memory improvement techniques too and that is working well. It's not that far off what I used to do with my routines, but far more sophisticated. Good luck with whatever you do and I hope your memory improves like mine has.