inadequacies? or differences?

I can't help it if I'm a forgetful person, and I have to ask the same questions over and over.

When somebody writes to me, whether it's an email or a text message etc, I read over the words lots of times. I don't know why, but it feels like if I read them once, it's not doing the words any justice. Maybe that's why I'm so good at picking up inconsistencies or grammatical errors (etc) from documents. I just have a natural tendency to mull over the written word.

From my previous experiences, I've discovered that if somebody teaches me how do to something at work, I need to write everything down step-by-step, because I can't recall everything they tell me once they've finished. I refer to my notes a few times in doing the task, and once I've done it a few times over an extended period of time (maybe a few days or a few weeks depending on the frequency of the task), it'll set itself in the collective conscious knowledge in my mind.

Same goes for my friends and whatever it is about their life that they are telling me about. I find myself forgetting quite a lot, or remembering the most abstract things about people. Quite frustrating, really. It makes it seem like I'm either uninterested or not listening properly. But that's not true! I'm just bad at remembering things sometimes. Okay, maybe a lot of the time.

Why is this? I don't know. Maybe I didn't have a good-memory gene handed down to me. Or maybe it's because I have such a broad variety of interests and social circles that I'm used to flitting about from one thought to another, making it difficult to focus on retaining a lot from any one source.

In any case, I'm trying to be a better listener for the people who matter to me the most. It's had quite positive results so far in my opinion, and hopefully I'll become a better people person.