Technology gets better at remembering; we, thankfully, get better at forgetting. And that forgetting? It’s what makes us human. Erase too much of it, and you erase yourself.

This obsession with permanence probably started with cave paintings. Lots of wiggle room there – is it a myth about zebras, a map to the watering hole, or both? Language, writing, the printing press… they all made forgetting harder. The words you’re reading now are clearer than a bison on a cave wall, but still open to interpretation. Forget something? You can flip back. Computers, though? They excel at not-forgetting. Digital video, audio, databases – tools designed to shore up our supposedly faulty memories, to decentralize a solution to the “problem” of forgetting.

I have what most call a “bad” memory. But after an experiment for this piece, I see it differently. My forgetting isn’t bad; it’s a gift.

For two days, a Saturday and Sunday, I took obsessive notes. Notebook everywhere. Details of conversations, viewpoints expressed, ideas sparked, tasks needing done, even what I ate. I reviewed it all each night. Sure, a couple of to-do items I’d forgotten, like hanging a projector, got done. A small win for note-taking. But mostly? Reading it back, my eyes glazed over. I was bored.

Everything that happened needed to happen, but most of it didn’t need to be remembered.

It reminded me instantly of a Kanye West tweet (before you get your pitchforks, it’s from 2011 so chill the fuck out):

I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a watter bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle

Looking at my notes felt like waking up to hundreds of water bottles demanding my attention. Most of it was mental trash, irrelevant the moment after it occurred. That Saturday, my wife and I planned a drive to look at houses. Our daughter got a cold, we cancelled. Not important enough to displace the immediate need. Forgotten, appropriately.

You, the living, breathing, faulty human, are at the center. Or you should be.

It’s easy to spot the insecurity in people terrified of forgetting. They don’t trust their own minds. You can forget the house-hunting trip because if it’s truly vital, the need will resurface. Strive too hard to remember everything, and you subordinate yourself to technology. The machine, the database, the spreadsheet becomes the center, not you. You become its servant, meticulously tracking every minor “action item.” The engine behind this isn’t diligence; it’s pride. The quiet insistence that everything you do, think, or say is worth preserving. Understand this: most of your day isn’t worth remembering in detail. Not because your life is boring, but because you can only carry so many damn water bottles.

Forgetting the three hours you spent at the DMV? A gift. You endured it once; why relive it? Remembering that you went is enough; the details are ballast. Toss them overboard.

Want to get bolder? What if you forgot most of the chores on your list? Most of the “action items” from that meeting? Assigning tasks to our future selves, or others, feels productive. You get the satisfaction of accomplishment without doing anything now. It’s rampant. The psychologist Albert Ellis coined a term I’m happily reappropriating: musterbation. We’ve become a culture of musterbators, frantically making lists and assigning tasks, convincing ourselves this flurry of activity equals success. It’s often just… busywork. Dreadfully boring busywork.

Next time you face a to-do list – yours or your micromanager’s – try jettisoning half of it. Just don’t do it. Is it dishonest? Or is it honouring the real priorities? That list was likely written in a manic, cigarette and caffeine-fueled burst of coked-up optimism, a grandiose vision of your future self’s infinite capacity. As Hemingway quipped, “Write drunk, edit sober.” Treat your to-do list the same. Edit ruthlessly in the sober light of day. Most of it doesn’t matter if you focus on the actual goal.

Your memory works like this automatically, if you let it. You don’t need to actively delete the past. Just keep a clear understanding of your target, your real goal. Your mind naturally forgets what isn’t relevant to reaching it.

Think of yourself as a radio tower, broadcasting your intent into the future and the past, shaping both by what you focus on now. Your job is to keep that signal strong, the programming clear for the coming weeks and months. Filter out the noise. Exclude the inessential.

I probably had another point to make, but for your sake, I’ve forgotten it.