How my memory works

Ivan Parfenchuk
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read

I have a confession to make: my memory is terrible!

The high level concepts seem to stay around longer, but details wash out swiftly. The math from my university course? Just concepts. High school physics? A few simple equations, but mostly remember only principles.

I even forget stuff that I’m doing as part of my day-to-day software developer job! Things like Objective-C block syntax, how exactly the responder chain works in iOS, the details of various patterns, what does VIPER stands for and so on. I have read about all these things multiple times, but have to google again, if I want to get them right. And I’ve been working as an iOS developer for almost 8 years now.

I remember on my last round of job interviews people were asking me “basic” job interview questions and I was super nervous for not remembering “basic” things. Then, after my 3rd, 4th interview, I’ve learned most of the answers and it became less stressful to go through interviews (with higher rate of success!).

The only things that stay fresh in my mind are things that I do regularly. And that kind of gives me both frustration and hope.

The frustration is coming from that I will likely continue forgetting things. There is little hope that I’ll be able to shine with encyclopedic knowledge, I’ve never had. And given the limited time I have every day, I won’t be able to regularly revisit all the knowledge I’ve touched throughout my life.

But hope is coming from the fact that I can still learn things. And fact that revisiting knowledge does keep it out there longer. That means that if I want to, I still can dig into some new area of life, figure things out and remember details while I keep applying effort to remember. It seems like the brain adapts to the things you every day and you can become “successful” in something if you do it regularly.

Ivan Parfenchuk

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iOS/Ruby on Rails developer at FirstAgenda