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Why Smart, Busy People Feel Like They're Losing Their Memory (Hint: Your Brain Was Never Built to Store Everything) And the Tiny "Second Memory" 300,000+ People Now Wear

By Maya Torres, as told to The Workday Report · 9 minute read

AS FEATURED IN  WSJ · TECHCRUNCH · FORBES · WIRED · THE VERGE

"You forgot again, didn't you?"

My sister didn't even sound angry. Just tired. Like she'd expected it.

It was her birthday dinner. I'd promised to book the table. I'd said it out loud, on the phone, two weeks earlier. "I've got it. Leave it to me."

I was standing in my kitchen at 7:40pm, still in my work clothes, staring at a phone with no reservation in it.

The same week, I blanked on a client's name in the middle of a call. I lost a business idea I'd had in the shower, gone before I'd dried my hair. And I told my manager I'd "send that over today" about something I couldn't remember by lunch.

None of it was a big deal on its own.

But together, it felt like my own head was leaking. Like I was slowly becoming someone who couldn't be counted on. At work. At home. With the people I love most.

And the worst part was, I had no idea why.

I'm 34. For most of my life, my memory was the thing people counted on me for. Names, birthdays, what a client said about their kid three months ago. I was the one who remembered.


Then life got bigger. More responsibility at work. More people. More messages. A phone that never stops. More to hold in my head every single day.


It didn't happen all at once. It crept up on me, like a slow leak.


First it was small things. A name. A date. Where I'd put my keys. I'd laugh it off. "Getting old, I guess."


Then it was promises. I'd say "I'll send it," "I'll call you back," "I'll book it," and mean it. And then it was simply gone. The texts started: "Just checking in on this." My stomach dropped every time.

Then it followed me to bed.


I started lying awake at 11pm with a head full of open loops. Did I reply to that email? What did my mom ask me to bring on Sunday? What was that idea I had this morning? I'd get up, open my laptop at the kitchen table, and scroll through old messages trying to piece my own life back together.

My partner started asking why I was always "somewhere else." At dinner. On weekends. Even mid-conversation. I didn't have a good answer. The truth was, half my brain was always busy trying not to forget something.


And people noticed. The tiny pause when I asked a question that had already been answered. The polite "like I said last week..."


Then came the conversation with my manager.

He wasn't cruel about it. That almost made it worse.

"You're great in the room, Maya. But things are falling through the cracks. I need to know I can hand you something and it gets done."

I sat in my car afterward and cried. Not because he was wrong. Because he was right. And it wasn't just work. It was my sister's birthday. My friend's big news I'd forgotten to ask about. The ideas I kept losing.


I was sleeping badly. Snapping at people I love. And there was a quiet voice in my head asking the question I was too scared to say out loud:

Is something wrong with my brain?

I had no idea that a few weeks later, I'd find the answer in the story of a 23-year-old who literally strapped a computer to his head. And it wasn't the answer I expected.

I Tried Everything. And I Mean Everything.

Before I tell you what finally worked, you need to understand what didn't. Because I'm guessing you've been down the same road I have.

Beautiful notebooks. I bought the good ones. The first few pages were perfect. Then life sped up, and the notes turned into half words and arrows I couldn't decode a day later. Half the time, the notebook was at home when I needed it.

Notes apps. I had six of them. Notes, reminders, a to-do app, a "second brain" app, voice memos, and a folder of screenshots. Everything was captured somewhere. Nothing was findable anywhere.


Voice memos. I recorded dozens with good intentions. I never listened to a single one again. Who has time to replay a 20-minute memo to find one sentence?


Reminders and alarms. My phone buzzed all day. I learned to swipe them away without reading them.


Productivity systems. I paid $300 for an online course on "building a second brain." It was clever. It lasted ten days. Every system died the first busy week, because every single one depended on me remembering to feed it.


Nothing worked. Not really. Not for long. A good week here and there, enough to make me think I'd cracked it.


It never stuck.


I even asked my doctor about it. She was kind. She ran bloodwork, asked about sleep and stress, and said everything looked normal. "You just have a lot on your plate," she said. "Try to slow down."


Slow down. With a full-time job, a family, and a phone that never stops.


That's when I realized: nobody was going to fix this for me. The tools weren't designed to help me remember. They were designed to give me more things to manage.

Then I Heard About the 23-Year-Old Who Strapped a Computer to His Head

A few weeks later, our company brought in an executive coach, Dana, for a round of sessions. I got one 30-minute slot. I didn't plan to bring any of this up. But when she asked what was getting in my way, it all came out. The birthday dinner. My manager. The 11pm kitchen table.


She didn't give me a productivity tip. She asked me a strange question: "Have you heard of Nik Shevchenko?"


I hadn't. So she told me about him.


Nik started his first company at 16 and sold it by 18. At 19 he joined the startup accelerator 500 Startups and built a second company, which was later acquired by Toptal. At 23, he was named a Thiel Fellow, the program started by billionaire Peter Thiel that backs a small group of young founders each year.


Most people in that position would build another app. Nik built something much stranger. A small device that listens to the conversations you choose to capture, understands them, and remembers them for you. The first versions could even be worn on the side of your head. He's said publicly that the long-term goal is a device that can one day fully read the mind.


In January 2025, he took it to the biggest tech show in the world, CES in Las Vegas. He called it Omi.

"Nik's idea is simple," Dana said. "Your brain is brilliant at thinking. It's terrible at storage. So stop using it as a hard drive. Give it a second memory."

I must have looked confused, because she pulled out her tablet and showed me what she meant.

The Real Reason You Keep Forgetting

Dana explained it to me like this:

"Every day, you're asking your brain to do two jobs at once. Job one is living your life: thinking, deciding, talking to people. Job two is being the storage room for all of it. Every name, every promise, every idea, every 'can you remind me.' Your brain is built for job one. It was never built for job two."

That's why the ideas vanish. That's why the promises slip. Not because you're lazy or getting old. Because your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do: drop what it isn't using right now so it can think.


"Think of it like a bucket with a hole in the bottom," she said. "Everything you hear and think all day pours in. But it starts draining the moment you move on. The notebooks, the apps, the reminders? They're just different ways of trying to catch a few drops with your hands."

"You don't have a memory problem. You have a storage problem."

That's why the notebooks didn't work: they only catch what you remember to write down.


That's why the voice memos didn't work: a recording you never replay is the same as no recording.


That's why the apps didn't work: six places to store things means no place to find them.


And that's why every system died by week two: they all needed me to remember to use them. Which was the exact thing I couldn't do.

The Science Is Clear (Even If Nobody Talks About It)

I went home that night and looked it up. I had to see it for myself. What I found made me feel a lot less crazy.


In 1885, psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus mapped what's now called the forgetting curve: without review, new information fades fast, and the steepest drop happens soon after we learn it. In 2015, researchers Jaap Murre and Joeri Dros repeated his experiment and published it in PLOS ONE. Their results closely matched his, more than a century later.

In 2001, psychologist Nelson Cowan published a widely cited review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences suggesting that working memory, the mental scratchpad you think with, holds only around four chunks of information at a time. A single busy morning throws hundreds at you.


And in 2011, researchers E.J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister published studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showing that unfinished tasks tend to keep intruding on your thoughts, and that making a concrete plan for them helped quiet that mental noise. Those 11pm open loops weren't a character flaw. They were my brain refusing to let go of things it had nowhere safe to put.


Put those together and my "memory problem" made perfect sense. A tiny scratchpad. A bucket that starts draining immediately. And a head full of open loops with nowhere to go.


The question was never "how do I remember harder?"

The question was: what if something else did the remembering, so my brain could just think?

"So how does Omi actually work?" I asked Dana at our follow-up.
She smiled and pointed at her collar.

The "Second Memory" Method: Capture, Recall, Act

Around her neck was a small pendant, about the size of a coin. I'd honestly assumed it was jewelry.


"This is it," she said. "Nik's device. I've been quietly recommending it to every client who tells me the story you just told me."

She explained that it takes the storage job off your brain completely, using three steps that work together:


1. Capture: hands-free, all day
Omi is worn as a necklace. It captures the conversations you choose to capture, in person, on calls, at dinner, in the car. It works in 25+ languages, can record offline and sync later, and runs all day on a charge. No phone out. No typing. You just live your life.


2. Recall: ask your second memory
Everything becomes searchable transcripts, summaries and memories in the Omi app on your iPhone or Android. You can search it, or simply ask: "What restaurant did my sister mention?" or "What was that idea I had on Tuesday?" Every evening you get a recap of your day.


3. Act: talk becomes tasks
This is the part that changed my life. Omi pulls the to-dos out of your conversations automatically. "I'll book the table" becomes a task, not a promise I forget. You can send tasks to the apps you already use, with 1,000+ apps in the Omi App Store.

"Here's the key," Dana said. "A recorder alone gives you hours of audio you'll never replay. A notes app alone still needs you to write things down. It only works when capture, recall and action all happen automatically, together. That's what makes it a second memory, not another tool."

"What do you have to lose?" she said. "Wear it for two weeks. You don't have to change anything else."

What Happened Over the Next 14 Days

I ordered it that night. At that point I'd spent hundreds of dollars on notebooks, courses and apps that didn't work. What was one more thing?


Day 1
I paired it with the app in a couple of minutes and just wore it. For the first time in months, I didn't open a notes app once. It felt strange, almost like cheating.


Day 2
That evening I opened my recap. Three things I'd said I would do that day were already on a list. One of them was calling my mom back. I'd completely forgotten.


Day 4
I had a great idea in the car and said it out loud. That night I asked the app, "What was my idea about the client event?" and there it was, word for word.


Day 7
I closed my laptop at 7pm. No 11pm kitchen table. Everything I'd committed to was already on my list, so my head finally went quiet.


Day 10
At dinner, a friend asked, "Wait, what was the name of that book you told me about?" I didn't even have to think. I checked in two seconds. Small moment. It felt huge.


Day 14
My sister called. I'd booked her a make-up birthday dinner, and I'd remembered every detail she mentioned wanting. She said, "Okay. Who are you and what did you do with my sister?"

That was four months ago. I haven't dropped a promise since. I'm present again, at work and at home. I sleep. My partner says I'm "back."

I stopped trying to remember everything. And for the first time in years, I feel like myself again.

Click Here to Get Yours Now →

I'm Not the Only One

Omi is used by 300,000+ professionals. Here's what a few of them say:

★★★★★

"Improves memory, ideas, and more."

Wears it through back-to-back calls and reviews the summaries afterwards instead of taking notes.

Nathan Sudds, Founder

★★★★★

"My AI clone helps with everything."

Uses captured conversations as a working memory he can question later in plain language.

Ansh Chopra, Founder

★★★★★

"Absolutely the best buy of 2024."

Runs client calls without a notepad and pulls the commitments out afterwards.

Salman Mian, VP of Sales, Salesforce

You Might Be Wondering...

"Isn't this just a fancy voice recorder?"
No. A recorder gives you audio. Omi gives you transcripts, summaries, to-dos and a memory you can search and ask questions to. The difference is whether you ever use what you captured.


"I already have a notes app. Why do I need this?"
A notes app only knows what you type into it. Omi captures what was actually said, so you don't have to remember to write it down in the first place.


"What about privacy?"
Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest. You can export everything, delete specific items or everything, and even run Omi locally. Omi is also open source, which is part of how Nik built it. And a good habit: always let people know when you're capturing a conversation, and follow your local laws.


"Do I need a subscription?"
No. The free plan includes unlimited on-phone transcription and 300 cloud minutes every month. Paid cloud plans are optional.


"Will it work with my phone?"
Omi works with iPhone (iOS 15+) and Android (7+), plus a Mac app and a web app in any browser.


"$129 seems cheap for something this useful."
I thought the same. But think about what it replaces: the courses, the apps, the notebooks, the late nights. And the cost of one forgotten promise to the wrong person.

Why This Works When Everything Else Failed

I asked Dana why more people don't know about this.

"The productivity industry sells you more systems to maintain. Another course. Another app. Another subscription. They don't make money when the problem simply goes away."

But the logic is simple:


When you stop asking your brain to be the storage room, it can go back to thinking.


When capture happens automatically, nothing drains out of the bucket.


When to-dos write themselves, promises stop slipping through the cracks.


It's not magic. It's just giving your brain the second memory it was never built to be.

Here's What I'd Tell You If You Were My Best Friend

If you're the person who keeps saying "wait, remind me again?", here's how to get the most out of Omi.


Wear it every day, not just for big moments. The small conversations are where most promises and ideas happen.


Read your recap every evening. It takes two minutes and it's the moment everything clicks.


Say your ideas out loud. In the car, on a walk, in the kitchen. Then ask for them later.


The first week, you'll feel lighter. By week three, you'll forget you ever tried to remember everything.

Let's Talk About What This Is Worth

Before Omi I'd spent hundreds of dollars on things that didn't work. A $300 course. Years of app subscriptions. A drawer full of notebooks. And a few relationships that took real effort to repair.


A personal assistant would cost more in a single week than Omi costs once.


Omi normally sells for $179. Right now there's a limited-time welcome offer: $50 off, applied automatically at checkout when you order through this page.

LIMITED-TIME WELCOME OFFER

Omi AI Wearable

$179 $129

Get Omi for $129 →

One-time purchase · Free plan included · Works with iPhone, Android, Mac and web

You're at a Crossroads

Path 1: Close this page. Keep the six notes apps and the notebook that trails off. Keep saying "I'll remember" and hoping you do. Keep lying awake at 11pm with a head full of open loops. Nothing changes if nothing changes.


Path 2: Give your brain the second memory it was never built to be. Tomorrow, just live your day. Tonight, read a recap of everything you said you'd do. Two weeks from now, be the person everyone can count on again.


The fact that you read this far tells me which one you want.

Yes, I Want Omi for $129 →

The $50 welcome discount applies automatically at checkout.

- Maya Torres

P.S. I still wear mine every day. Not because I'm scared of forgetting anymore, but because I like who I am now: present, relaxed, and the one who always remembers.


P.P.S. My sister asked me last month what changed. I sent her this page. She's wearing one now too.

The information presented on this website is for general information only and is not professional advice. Omi is a productivity tool. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or improve any medical or memory condition. Results in the story and representations may not be typical and individual results may vary.


This website is a marketing piece published by Omi (Based Hardware Inc.). The publisher has a material financial connection to the product referred to on this page because it sells the product.


The story depicted on this website is fictional. Maya Torres and Dana are illustrative characters based on common experiences. Biographical details about Omi founder Nik Shevchenko are drawn from public sources. Testimonials in the "I'm Not the Only One" section are from real Omi customers. Research is cited for general background and does not evaluate Omi. Always follow local laws and let people know when you are capturing a conversation.

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