Think of something in the future
Photo by Alan Oliveira
If you think of an action you have to do, but you cannot access your context lists or you do not have a list for that context, it is possible to strongly visualize a moment in the future and think about the task that you have to remember to do in that moment.
Example: you are riding on your bicycle, headed to the railway station. You have 30 minutes of biking to do and cannot write anything down. Suddenly you remember that you have to go to the ATM at the station. Then it helps to visualize yourself parking your bike and then saying to you future-you: “ATM!”.
I have tried this several times, and it works like this: when the visualized moment actually arrives, you get a hunch that there was something that you should think about. When you pause for a moment and try to remember, the imprint from the past suddenly pops to your mind: “ATM!”
Reverse memory
This works like a reverse memory. A memory is a thought about something in the past, but the reverse memory is a thought we try to think about in the future.
I have learned that Leonardo Davinci also used pre-imagination in the creative process, so I am in very good company :-).