Recalling Details About People Without Remembering Their Name, Is There An App For That?

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I have a really hard time remembering names. It’s not a blindness thing; it’s a me thing. I can remember the most obscure details about people, but when it comes to important stuff like names, my brain often just goes blank. I’ve often wished I had an app that would let me keep track of information about a person so that I can find their information later based on some detail I remember. In my head, I’m envisioning a sort of personal LinkedIn where I could search something like “Works at XYZ, does training, hates mushrooms” and have it return the person’s name. Now, you’re probably reading this and wondering, what do mushrooms have to do with anything? I enjoy talking to people, learning about their lives, and often, that leads to discovering things we may have in common. I don’t like mushrooms myself, and so while I may not remember a person’s name or exact job title, I likely would remember if they told me that they don’t like mushrooms.

I’ve tried keeping track of details in the Notes field of contact cards, in Microsoft OneNote, Word documents, Apple Notes, and similar systems, but while these apps work for storing information, recalling, or searching for it has not worked well for me. I can’t imagine I’m completely alone in this. My guess is that people who work in sales, regularly attend conferences, or who interact with many people for whatever reason, could have similar struggles. If you are such a person, I’d love to learn any tips, tricks, apps, or other techniques that you’ve found helpful. Please reach out directly, or if you comment right here on this post, others may find the info helpful as well. Thanks in advance… Oh, and if we meet up somewhere and I don’t seem to remember you, please be a bit patient with me. After all, I probably do remember that you love apple pie, and of course, I remember that you have great taste when it comes to the blog content you read. 🙂


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Comments

4 responses to “Recalling Details About People Without Remembering Their Name, Is There An App For That?”

  1. Lousy with names and dates. Great at remembering minutia

  2. Steve, you are not alone, I hear this from many people. In my case, it is getting worse over the years. I think the first thing to figure out how important it is to know info about a person, will you ever meet again, and how much do you care anyway? If we took notes of all things we encounter in life, we wouldn’t have time to live.
    However, in a work situation for example, it can be real. In a previous job, I worked with many people on a regular basis, and they often dropped little personal details which were great to remember. I religiously put these into my meeting notes, and after the meeting, I copied it into a person file. Nothing fancy, just a list of people internal or external I met through that particular job. The only organization was that I put them in alphabetical order. Next time I had a meeting with someone and I couldn’t recall anything, I could at least check if I have a note about them or not. However, I have to say, if you spend a half hour with someone, it should inspire to note something down about the person, personal or professional.
    Now in my private life, I am totally disorganized, and I should implement my own system.

    1. Tom, a notes file is a very good idea, I should probably implement this. I thought about just using the Notes field in a person’s contact card, but would have to be sure to delete any notes if ever I needed to share the card for some reason otherwise, that could get awkward. I’ll definitely give this some thought though, long as I had a way to search for a detail and locate the person vs needing to locate the person and then have the details, I think I would be much better off.

      1. tbabinszki Avatar
        tbabinszki

        Steve, great point, I never thought about accidentally sharing contact notes. Also, what I don’t like about the contact notes is that it is hard to know who has anything without opening and scrolling down.

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