Remembering Names Shortcuts – The Easy Way

I have always been pretty good at remembering names. It was so easy to match names to faces. But as life becomes more complex at work and home and as I get older (eek), my faculties are challenged to say the least.

If you have busy kids say in one or more sports, you are immediately thrust into a parent community, which presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Add to that all the stakeholders to keep track of at work, whether they be internal or external to your company and the number of potential people in your network can skyrocket.

Last weekend I attended a soccer tournament. This was a traveling event with all the kids and parents in the same hotel. Some of the parents I knew well from past experiences but there were a good deal that embarrassingly, I couldn’t remember their names. This despite numerous conversations on the sidelines and was likely was introduced to them more than once but have since forgotten their names. Add to that them knowing my name and I pretty much felt like a jerk.

Now in all fairness, my husband is well-known in the soccer circle, so I am known mostly by association, “you are Dave’s wife.”

At this point you might be saying, but wait, don’t teams normally have parent rosters? Yes but in this case no. And you might be thinking, dummy, just ask them their name and you would be right, but too much time has passed and for some, I really should know their name so I would be just too mortified to ask.

Action Steps To Remembering Names

So that leaves me at the tournament, feeling like dufus. I decided to take action.

1. I dug out old emails to the parents and started reverse-engineering first/ last names. Not always easy as plenty of folks have emails that have nothing to do with their names (dog names? Nick names?)
2. I looked through the group text to piece together which parent belonged to which kid. Now you might be saying to yourself, well just get the names from the text group. But again, not that easy as it was run through a third party app
3. Cross-check with LinkedIn. This is my go-to for professional contact hunting but didn’t yield much in terms of results for this crowd
4. Cross check last names with the kids jerseys. This too was a bit of a bust because once I started this hunt for names and faces, the girls switched to the jersey’s that did not have their names written on the back…sigh

Now all of this checking and cross checking from different places felt like a puzzle. I will confess, I put all this together in the car (while watching the game) with my three-year old sound asleep (thankfully) in her car seat.

The only scrap of paper I found to scribble down these names and connections was a Victoria’s Secret bra size card. Clearly I was desperate.

However, based on this set of barely legible scribbles I cobbled together almost all the names, whew. Then wrote it all up as a note in my phone.

Now I am headed to a conference and will need to be on my toes for remembering names and faces. It will be much easier as all the conference participants wear NAME TAGS!!

Five Tips To Help That’s Worked For Me

My suggestion to ease the pain and suffering of all busy, distracted sideline parents that want to at least give the appearance that they have it together is name tags as a mandatory accessory for any kid-related activity.

But absent that, here are a few tips for remembering names:

1. When you are first introduced – PAY ATTENTION
2. When you hear the name, repeat is back to them, “nice to meet you Bob. Hey Bob, do your kids go to such and such school?” I can’t emphasize enough how much this helps
3. In your mind, repeat the name at least three times
4. Make an association with the person. Best if you can rhyme words or connect with something already strongly in your brain. It might remind you of that person. For example, “Angela, looks like an angel” or “Jenny is a ginger” – these sound silly but they work
5. If you are really ambitious, write it down or put a note in your phone. Or better yet connect on a social network so you could look them up later.

But really if everyone could just wear a nametag everywhere they went, it would save so much grief.