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- ^ Introduction - Overcoming Absentmindedness\
-
- Absentmindedness is probably the most commonplace of minor self-annoyances.
- We have all had countless instances where we have "forgotten" to pass on a
- message, or to post a birthday card, or to make a telephone call, or to put
- petrol in the car, or to turn off the oven. And, how many times have you
- put something "in a safe place", so that you won't forget where it is, only
- to later spend hours searching for it ?
-
- Just think for a moment how often you have seen people searching for their
- front door key, or their spectacles, or wallet, or umbrella, or calculator,
- or cheque book, or a pen they had "just a moment ago".
-
- These instances can range from being mildly irritating to completely and
- utterly devastating. If you put down a newpaper, or a pen, and subsequently
- "forget" where you placed them, then you may feel slightly irritated. But,
- consider the case of someone who checks his football pools coupon on a
- Saturday, and discovers that he has 24 points, with a jackpot dividend
- forecast. Imagine his devastation when he finds his entry coupon in his
- jacket pocket, and realises that he has forgotten to post it. There have
- been several reported cases of this actually happening !#
-
- There are many other situations where absentmindedness can be costly or
- embarrassing. If you have a credit card, and settle the balance each month
- so that you avoid paying interest, it can be very costly if you forget to
- pay that balance one month, and the interest is added !
-
- To take another example, consider a hostess who has invited a dozen guests
- around for a dinner party. She spends hours preparing a casserole, places
- it in the oven, and waits two and a half hours for it to cook. But, she
- forgets to turn the oven on, and doesn't realise it until the guests have
- arrived. Result - one red-faced hostess dashing round to the nearest
- Take-Away Restaurant.
-
- To some people, absentmindedness may seem a trivial problem. They probably
- don't realise just how much time and effort they spend hunting for items
- they've "just put down for a second", or on retreiving items they have left
- in cars, taxis, buses, trains, and friends' houses, or worrying about
- whether they have locked the front door, or fed the cat, or switched off
- the iron, or set the video recorder to record their favourite television
- programme...#
-
- Many people have their own methods of trying to deal with absentmindedness.
- These include tying a knot in a handkerchief when they want to remember
- something, or scrawling messages in ink across the back of their hands. The
- trouble with such methods is that they frequently don't work - you spend
- ages staring at your knotted handkerchief trying to recall what it was you
- needed to remember, or trying to decipher the messages on your hand, which
- have now become smudged and illegible.
-
- Tutorial 14 teaches you some simple, systemmatic methods for overcoming the
- problem of absentmindedness, using the techniques of ^association\ and
- ^visualisation\ with which you are now very familiar.
-
-
- ^Press Page Down to Proceed to Tutoria1 14\~