Names and faces: never forget a name again
The four-stage protocol for attaching a name to a face and retrieving it weeks later.
Why names get forgotten
In the great majority of cases it is not forgetting: the information never went in. At the moment someone gives you their name you are busy managing your own introduction, your posture, your handshake. Attention was elsewhere.
The rest is a problem of arbitrariness: nothing in a face designates a Lauren rather than a Nicola.
The HFIL protocol
H, hear
Actually listen. If you did not hear it, ask: sorry, Marion or Marianne? Nobody has ever taken offence at someone taking an interest in their name. It reads as attentiveness.
F, fix the feature
Spot one salient, stable feature of the face: brow ridge, jaw, shape of the nose, expression lines, hairline, a ring, the eyes. Avoid what changes, clothing and three-day stubble.
The rest is part of the Absolute Memory module
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