Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer

Jun 8

Jun 8 Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer

I take a lot of pictures to help me remember things - from grocery lists to places I've visited, to the countless pictures I take of my kids, I take a lot of photos. Just glancing at my camera roll, I have over 4000 pictures on there right now - and while I periodically go through and clear out those pictures, I'm clearly overdue.

One question that's important to ask is, do photos really help us remember. I mean, of course they do, right? But I've also seen plenty of people on social media decrying others constantly taking pictures of events. I see complaints like, "people would rather take a picture of a sunrise than actually experience one."

And I've never known how to take that argument. With ADHD, my memory can be pretty piss poor at times, so pictures are a great way for me to remember things I otherwise wouldn't. Fortunately, I don't have to rely on the whims of lifestyle bloggers to tell me if I should take pictures or not - We can turn to science!

Until recently, we actually didn't have a lot of great information on this topic - photography has been around for less than 200 years - but many scientists have recently been exploring the idea of "cognitive offloading" and what it means for our development as a species. Cognitive offloading is a bit of a broad term that encompasses a few areas, but it basically means doing things to make it easier for your brain to process information. So this can mean turning your head so that you are looking a document straight on (sure we can read something upside down, but it is much easier for us to just turn our heads. But cognitive offloading also covers stuff like taking stuff out of our heads and recording externally - like writing down a phone number or putting something in our calendars. Because if it is written down, we don't have to think about it, and we can just "forget it" until we get our reminder.

So what some scientists have hypothesized is that when we take pictures, we're essentially just cognitively offloading our memory of the experience, which in turn reduces our ability to recall that event. Like how we generally won't remember all the phone numbers stored on our phones because, well, we don't need to. But recent studies have called into question this idea of cognitive offloading from taking pictures. In a recent study of almost 300 people, researchers found that when subjects were asked to take photos during a tour of a museum while listening to an audio guide, they were able to recall more details of what they had seen than those who had not taken pictures.

VINDICATION! Time to just tape a camera to my head and take pictures all day long, I will remember EVERYTHING! Well, except the study also found that group taking photos recalled less of what they heard from the audio guide. Hun, so what does this mean? What researchers believe is happening is that when we are taking pictures, we are narrowing our focus and decreasing what we remember. Think about how when you are driving through a neighborhood looking for a particular address. So what do we do, we turn down the radio - wait, what? We don't need it to be quiet to use our eyes, right? Well, this is another case of cognitive offloading, and as we are acutely aware with ADHD, we actually only have so much focus to go around. By turning down the radio, we, in fact, do increase our ability to focus visually. We are doing the same thing when we are taking a picture, our brain is turning down the noise around us to focus on the visual aspects.

While we are a very visual creatures, we can't dismiss the importance of our audio memories. And this means that we can't rely on just taking photos of everything to have perfect recall. None the less, taking pictures is still an incredible tool we can use to help us overcome some of our ADHD challenges. We've just got to be aware of what it means and when it is and isn't a good time to use photos as a memory aid.

One of the things that I've wrestled with for years is if I want physical or digital journals. Physical journals appeal to me in so many different ways. Writing feels different when you do it with a pen and paper - it's easier for me to get into that groove without getting distracted - I mean, there are no red squiggly lines under half the words I write for one thing. But one the reasons I find most compelling for having a physical journal is that I love the idea of after years of journaling having a bookshelf full of my old journals. Sure, it's pretty much just a vanity thing, but none the less it's an image that my brain has latched onto.

At the same time, I like the idea of having digital journals. Also, for similar reasons - I want to be able to have a collection of my journals, and keeping something digitally is much easier than physically. I also like the idea that with a digital journal that I could tag my entries and then be able to easily search through them. All those entries I've written about book ideas, I could have tagged and pull them all up without looking through countless other entries. Although I think the main thing I'd find is journal entries starting off describing how tired I am...

Note to self: Action Item, get more sleep.

And despite all my googling, I haven't come up with a satisfying answer to which is better - I mean it's pretty subjective, so that isn't surprising. So I've come up with a compromise because I can have a physical journal and still have digital copies. All I need to do is take a picture of what I wrote - it really is just that simple. There are even a ton of programs now that can turn your handwriting into digital text.

I stumbled upon this idea when I was researching ways to get around my journaling problems. At first, I was playing around with the idea of using a Smart Pen - I had tried using the Echo from Livescribe, which seemed like it would solve all my problems. It would let me take notes, and the pen would create a digital copy of what I wrote. But I found it too bulky and then the screen died so I couldn't tell if it was turned on or not - but it did enchant me with the idea of turning handwritten stuff digital. I then turned my eyes to the Rocketbook, which is a reusable notebook - for those of you that haven't heard of this before this is going to sound absurd, but the Rocketbook is a notebook that you can microwave, and it will erase all the text. I know it sounds ridiculous, but with the special paper in the notebook and erasable Frixion pens when you microwave your journal, it gets completely erased - magic.

Anyways, the appeal of the Rocketbook was that it had an app to take pictures of your notes before you erased your journal. I loved the idea but just the picture part - as I mentioned, I want a bookshelf full of journals, so I don't particularly need the reusable journal part. So the solution was just to use any journal I want and then take pictures of my entries. I can then just drop the pictures directly into my journaling folder on Evernote. If I ever get more ambitious, I'll probably go down the handwriting to text path, but for now, I'm just happy keeping digital copies of my entries.

I also use the same idea to create digital copies of everything I do on my whiteboard. I love all the space my whiteboard has to offer, but it makes recording those ideas hard sometimes, so taking pictures makes the process so much easier. Although to get good images, I do have to use the panoramic mode on my camera - leads to some funky words sometimes, but it's usually still legible.

And this only scratches the surface of how we can use pictures to keep digital copies.

When I worked at my frisbee league, I worked in Portland, OR - but our main office was in Philadelphia. When I made purchases that needed to be reimbursed, they didn't want me to send an envelope of receipts to them, they just wanted me to take a picture of the receipt and send it to them. This was actually a great habit to develop, I'm terrible of keeping track of receipts, so for anything that I might need the receipt for I just snap a quick picture.

In fact, I do this for pretty much any important document that I might have to reference - while I might not be able to use the picture for anything official, I can keep the original filed away and just use the digital when I need to reference it. It saves me from losing the document and also helps keep my desk clear of a lot of the paper clutter it would otherwise develop.

Pictures are great for creating copies of things like to-do lists, grocery lists, or all those reminders you have written down on post-its. Anything that we might want to reference while we're on the go.

All right, let's switch gears for a minute and talk about cleaning.

I find that taking photos is a great way to augment your cleaning in a number of ways.

Let's start by thinking of a particularly messy room - like a garage or rec room where you've been dumping boxes in for the better part of the last 5 years - or maybe just a junk drawer. You know you need to get to work on organizing everything, but it is overwhelming to even think about starting. In any instance where I'm feeling overwhelmed by the thought of starting, my first step is always working on a plan of attack. To help make this plan, I like starting with a picture - not a lot of pictures, just one or two that encompass the range of the mess. Once we have this picture, we can use it to write out the steps of what needs to happen.

I find this process is incredibly helpful - first it takes the 3D space and turns it 2D. This makes the room a lot easier for my brain to parse. If I print out the picture or even just use a simple image editor on the digital photo, I can circle and highlight which areas I think will need the most attention. I also like doing this with a picture because I can work on my plan outside of the space that I need to work on - it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by the planning process when I'm in the middle of things. If I can sit down and look things over, it slows everything down, and I can actually think through what needs to happen. Plus, when I'm in the space I tend to try and just get started. Which means instead of actually planning, I only get overwhelmed five minutes later and quitting without having really done anything.

And these pictures give us a great before and after shots. One of my problems with cleaning is that after I'm done, it feels like I haven't really done anything because I just put everything back to where it was supposed to be. When you have a before and after shot, it really helps appreciate what you've done. I'll also use the before and after shots to send to my accountability group so that I can show what I'm going up against and then as a confirmation that I'm done.

Finally, having pictures of what a room should look like after it's been cleaned can be really helpful during the cleaning planning process - planning is so much easier if you have a good sense of where you're going. This tip won't help you for your first run through cleaning, but trust me when I tell you that at some point you are going to need to clean again - so after that first clean take the pictures and save them someplace you'll be able to find them the next time you need to clean.

I did an entire episode about cleaning a few weeks ago, Episode 29: Cleaning House - so be sure to check that out if you want more tips on cleaning.

One of the creative ways I've started using photos is to help with some travel anxiety, which I mainly get from worrying that I forgot to do something, like closing the garage. Now before I go on trips, I'll go through the house and take quick pictures of things like all the doors and windows being locked and also before I drive away, the closed garage. I don't even have to look at these pictures while I'm away because if I know I took them, then I know it got done.

Often taking a picture can be quicker than writing down a note.

If I'm in a parking garage, I can just take a picture of the space I'm in. Or if I'm at the store and see something that I may not want to buy right there and then, but still want to check out, that's a great time to snap a picture.

But this does come with a downside, as I've said I have a lot of pictures on my phone. I've taken dozens more since I've started writing this episode. Those pictures aren't worth anything if I don't ever look at them, and often they are only important to look at once or twice - I mean, I don't really need to look at my grocery list from three weeks ago again.

So what we've got to do is set aside time to go through our pictures. Every week I try and spend time consolidating all my various "to-do" lists. While I was in the ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability groups, Eric taught us to go through all the places to-dos can pop up, like your email and voicemail. I'm also writing myself notes on post-its, in my pocket notebook, and on my whiteboard. And now, of course, another important place to look for to-do's in the photos folder on my phone.

This means at the end of the week I spend a little time looking through the photos I've taken. I'll add to-do's for any pictures that need reminders and I'll also delete any of those photos I don't need anymore. It's actually kind of fun to go through my photos from the week, so this is a nice addition to my weekly review. I also like to pick out a few of the good ones to add to my favorites folder. It's easy to get overwhelmed going through your photos when you've got thousands to look through, so I'd suggest that if you don't do this weekly, you are least do it monthly.

This Episode’s Top Tips

When take pictures we narrow our focus and this helps us remember more of the visual aspects of what we are photographing - however this also tends to reduce the amount of information we can recall from what we heard.
We can take pictures of our physical reminders like to-dos, grocery lists, and journal entries to create digital copies to take with us.
Picture taking while cleaning can reducing the amount of input we're getting at one time by changing spaces from 3D to 2D. We can also benefit from having before and after photos to see the work we've done and to also create a reference of what a room is supposed to look like when it's been cleaned.
We need to go through our photos periodically so that we don't get overwhelmed by having to many too sift through at once - we also want to create action items on our to do list from the pictures we take so that we don't forget what we wanted to be reminded about.