How to remember everyone's birthdays
Every method honestly compared: a calendar, contact birthdays, a list, phone reminders, Facebook, asking and automatic sending. Each fails differently.
Memory is not a system
Write it down once
You forgot one again, and you have decided this is the year it stops. Good. The bad news is that the thing you are relying on, remembering, is the one method that does not work, because the birthdays you forget are exactly the ones memory was supposed to hold. The good news is that every other method works, provided you know how each one fails, because they all fail in a particular way.
Answer in brief
Write every birthday down once, in one place that will tell you before the day rather than on it, and then stop trying to remember. A calendar with annual repeats and a reminder set a week ahead is the method most people should use, because it is already on your phone. Contact birthdays and a single list are fine if you keep them. Facebook works only for people who are on it and only on the day. Asking is how you find out the dates in the first place. And if the point is to actually send a card rather than to know the date, the method that closes the gap is to pick the card and the date in advance and have it posted for you.
Why doesn't remembering work?
Because it is not a method, it is a hope. The birthdays you already remember are your mum's and your partner's, and you did not remember those, you absorbed them over years. Everyone else's birthday is a date you learned once and have no reason to think about for eleven months, and the human memory does not keep dates it has no reason to think about. This is not a character flaw. It is what memory is for, and it is not for this.
So the question is never how to remember. It is where to write it down so that the writing down does the remembering.
What are the methods, and how does each one fail?
Seven, in roughly the order most people try them.
A calendar with annual repeats. Put each birthday in once as a yearly event with a reminder a week before. Everything you already have a calendar for happens automatically. Where it fails: the reminder fires and you dismiss it, because you are in a meeting, and there is no second reminder. Set two, one a week ahead and one two days ahead, or the method is only as good as the moment the first one fires.
Contact birthdays. Most phones let you put a birthday on a contact and will surface it. Where it fails: you have to remember to fill it in, the reminder is often on the day, and it is silent about people whose number you do not have, which includes half your family.
A single list. A note, a page, a spreadsheet, every birthday in one place. Where it fails: it does not tell you anything. You have to remember to look at it, and looking at it is the thing you were trying not to have to remember. It is the right place to keep the dates and the wrong place to be reminded of them.
Phone reminders. A reminder per birthday, set to repeat. Where it fails: the same way the calendar does, plus you now have two systems. Use one. If your calendar is the calendar, the reminders belong in it.
Facebook. It tells you on the day, for the people who are on it and have their date visible. Where it fails: on the day is too late for a card, and the people you most want to remember, an older relative, a friend who left, are the ones not on it. It is a backstop, not a method.
Asking people. The only way to get the dates in the first place, and nobody minds being asked. Where it fails: it does not store anything. Ask once, write it down in the one place, and you never ask again.
Automatic sending. Choose the card and the date in advance and have it printed and posted for you when the time comes, which is what Set & Forget on Vibe Card does: save the people and the dates, switch on reminders to get a nudge before each one, and schedule the card to be posted in time for the day. Where it fails: it covers the card and not the phone call, you pay when you schedule rather than when it sends, and it needs an account. It is the one method that closes the gap between knowing the date and the card actually arriving, which is the gap the other six leave open.
Which should you use?
One place for the dates and one thing that tells you in time, and for most people that is the calendar with two reminders. Add automatic sending for the birthdays where the point is a card on the doormat, since a reminder still leaves you to buy, write and post it in a week that is already full.
| Method | Tells you before the day | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar with annual repeats | Yes, if you set the reminder ahead | One reminder dismissed is the year lost; set two |
| Contact birthdays | Sometimes, often on the day | Silent about anyone whose number you lack |
| A single list | No | You have to remember to look |
| Phone reminders | Yes | A second system beside the calendar |
| No, on the day | The people not on it are the ones you most forget | |
| Asking | No, it only finds the date | Store it or you will ask again |
| Automatic sending | Yes, and sends the card | The card only; paid in advance; needs an account |
What not to do
- Rely on remembering. It is the one method with no mechanism, and it fails on exactly the dates it was for.
- Set the reminder for the day. A card cannot be bought, written and posted on the day. A week ahead, and a second two days before.
- Keep dates in three places. Calendar, contacts and a note, each with some of them. One place, all of them.
- Trust Facebook for the people who matter. The relative not on it is the one you will miss.
- Ask and not write it down. You will ask again next year, and they will notice.
- Fix it for this year only. A birthday written in once as a yearly repeat is fixed for good. A birthday written in once as a single event is next year's forgotten one.
Related situations
- You forgot, and it is now late. One word covers the lateness, and the rest of the card is the card. That is its own post.
- How late is too late. There is no rule, only who it is for. A child is thrilled at any point; a colleague after a fortnight would rather hear it in person.
- You remembered and do not know what to write. A greeting, one line that could only be about them, a wish.
By John Lally
