Once upon a time, I had a boss who couldn’t believe the awesome power of my mind to retain information.  I never carried a planner or calendar, and I knew all the phone numbers I needed and such — just from simple memory.

Long (and boring) story short, I agreed to her demands that I use a day planner for six months.  So, on the company dime, she bought for me a deluxe Franklin planner, and I dutifully used it for just about everything.

Well, hell’s bells — her disbelief in my mental acuity became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  After six months, I couldn’t remember a thing, which is why my most essential piece of property is my Blackberry.  To this day, if I don’t write it down — it’s gone.  And if I do write it down but forget to put it in Outlook — it’s gone anyway.

The mind is a wonderful and mysterious thing.  It can be trained to perform great works of beauty, to ponder complex ideas, to calculate difficult equations.  But it can be trained negatively, as well — especially through chronic disuse.

I’ve been flirting with testing for Mensa.  Not sure if I want to try the exercise only to fail by a point or two because my brain got flabby.

Moral of the story:  Brainpower, like cardiopulmonary endurance, is a “use it or lose it” thing.  Be careful to not let too much of it decline!