Misremembering intentions as completed

There’s a reason why people often forget to take a daily medication or respond to that email they’ve been meaning to send, and it can be chalked up to the gulf between intention and actually completing an action, according to new research co-written by a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign expert who studies social psychology.

Source: Paper: Mundane behavioral decisions, actions can be ‘misremembered’ as done | Illinois

Maybe I’m the only one, but there have been several times when I’m in the shower and I can’t remember if I had washed my hair or not. Nowadays I open the shampoo bottle before I get in, and then close it when I’m done washing my hair. That way I don’t have to remember if I washed it or not.

Apparently, this happens in other aspects of life too. That’s why I’m a big fan of checklists.