Comparison
Sticky notes or spoken reminders?
By the time a family is worried, there are usually notes on the kettle, the door and the fridge. They are a good instinct that runs out of road.
Short answer
Notes work for facts that need to be available in a place — the door code, who is visiting. They do not work for things that need to happen at a time, because there is nothing to make the person look at the right moment.
What notes are genuinely good at
- Place-based facts: "lock the back door" on the back door.
- Reassurance: "Jane is coming at 2pm" by the chair.
- Contact details by the telephone.
- Instructions at the point of use, like on the washing machine.
Why the system collapses
Notes accumulate. Once there are more than a handful they stop being read, and old ones create confusion — a note about an appointment three weeks ago is worse than no note at all.
They also become distressing for some people, a visible record of not coping in their own home.
Time-based things need something that arrives
Lunch, fluids, a walk, a call to a friend — these are about the hour, not the place. Only something that comes to the person at that hour can prompt them reliably.
A short spoken message does that without adding to the paper on the walls.
A sensible middle ground
Keep three or four permanent notes where they belong, remove everything temporary as soon as it has passed, and move everything that depends on the time of day to scheduled prompts.