Some of you may not remember the heavy-duty file cabinets that used to be common place in office buildings before the world went paperless.  For all intents and purposes, I barely remember them myself — as a millennial on the other side of my 30th birthday.  However, if memory serves (no pun intended #waitforit) I should be able to give you a history lesson on how the world stored data before jump drives and cloud computing:

1st       You bought a ridiculously heavy metal filing cabinet which generally required a dolly and plenty of muscle to be delivered to a lonely corner of your office.

2nd     You purchased a box of manila folders from your local office supply store.

3rd      You manually labeled each of what felt like an endless pile of tan cardstock folders.

4th      You put the folders into alphanumeric sections divided within the cabinet drawers.

5th      The fun part: You enter hundreds (sometimes thousands!) of sheets of paper into the appropriately labeled folders for future recall.

As tiring as this process sounds, our brains complete similar processes of storage and retrieval in fractions of a second.  Thus, we are capable of remembering a grocery list on our way to the local market as well as memories from our childhood.

Unfortunately, memories are misplaced over time like most of the papers stored in the prehistoric file cabinets I could barely remember above!

“Time moves in one direction, memory in another.”

—William Gibson

I’m sure most of us would agree that technology has provided us with a “better mousetrap” in respect to data storage.  We’ve come a long way from the Library of Alexandria to search engines, linking us to a seemingly endless amount of data.  The heavy duty file cabinets of the 20th Century have been converted to packet data stored on cell phones in heavy duty cell phone cases.

Time & memory have merged in respect to our technology, but what about our actual physical memory?

Over the years, several memorization techniques have been popularized.  I’ll list a few:

• Associate a memory with an image or story
• Create a mental memory tree
• Write the info to be memorized several times
• Method of loci
• Take notes on info you aim to remember

Most memorization techniques are manual, centralized and time consuming like the file cabinet.  In a world where information is readily at our fingertips — this approach seems antiquated.

How much would efficiency, increase if you delegated the responsibility of your memorization?  If you “blockchained” your brain.

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions.  Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central record keeping.

BlockchainTechnology has grown beyond the confines of bitcoin accounting to become a virtually incorruptible digital ledger that can be programmed to keep track of anything of value. This flexibility makes blockchain tailor made for logistics and in a lot of ways recollection is the process of moving information from storage to our mind’s awareness.  Instead of relying solely on our cognitive ability — we can create blocks to prompt our memory.

Automating the process by taking advantage of “Ifthisthenthat” applications like IFTT or by implementing more low-tech man powered ledger systems.  The possibilities are endless.

With a little imagination you can come up with a variety of ways to automate the memorization process.  Systems where the initial decision to flag information as pertinent starts a domino effect which prompts external reminders & triggers to activate.  Decentralizing the workload and establishing a chain of accountability. 

A few benefits:

Limited Liability

By spreading accountability across channels we place a greater emphasis on the information we need to remember opposed to focusing on our ability to effectively recall.

Checks & Balances

The goal is to keep our minds aware of a piece of information: What better way to accomplish this then by introducing external agents to the equation.

Efficiency

The BCB approach brings truth to the idiom two heads are better than one.  Couple the external inputs with ledger tracking and identifying areas of opportunity becomes routine.

Increased Productivity

Do you remember the memorization techniques I mentioned above? (pun intended) The major drawback of them all is they require a large amount of time, energy and effort.  The BCB approach when properly implemented feels autonomous.

Editable

Often the information we seek to remember is associated with a forthcoming event, task or activity.  By decentralizing accountability, we free the data we need to access in the future to be edited by third parties. Thus, opening the information our minds will need to recall up to increased specificity and enhancement.

Whether you are struggling to recall a login password, an anniversary or an item on your to do list – the BCB approach will help insure you successful remember the things that matter.  By taking advantage of a proven methodology, you can eliminate the pain from your personal data storage.

Life is too short – to misplace the best parts!