Working with Fallible Memory

Account for memory distortion in your decisions:

• Write things down — external records do not suffer from reconstruction bias. Journal your decisions and their actual outcomes
• Be skeptical of vivid certainty — the most vivid memories are not the most accurate. Emotional intensity is not a reliability signal
• Check with others — shared events are remembered differently by different people. Multiple perspectives create a more accurate composite
• Review your journal — comparing what you actually decided with what you now remember reveals how much your memory edits.