[hinkley]

My method of learning and recall has changed over the decades so I hesitate to offer any advice as universal.

Children often have a 'photographic memory' until around puberty but in my case it lasted well into my late teens. I recall on a number of tests knowing that I had written the answer down, and even where on the page of notes the answer was. Several times I managed to wrestle the answer out of my brain by finishing the rest of the test and then running the clock down trying to picture the page of notes.

But today I am pretty close to functionally aphantasic. My dominant mental model is that I 'think in shapes'. I don't see the shapes, its more like I feel them. And that suffices for many things like getting replacement parts at the hardware store, or reassembling something I've taken apart. It's only with some difficulty that I can 'picture' an item. It's like I have a mind castle but wear a blindfold.

Anyway, in college I discovered that my recall of things I wrote down was starting to fail. If I wrote down something and lost the notes I was screwed. Todo lists were the first thing I cut out. My odds of remembering to do something by willing myself to remember were far better than having notes getting covered by a book.

Now I have electronic notes and some reminders, but if I lost my phone and my backups, my life would unravel.