Have you ever been watching television, reached a commercial break, and then found yourself struggling to remember what program you were watching initially? Don't feel bad -- it's happened to virtually all of us before. People are quite forgetful, and studies indicate that this isn't something that's unique to only a select few of us.

Research has shown that about one-sixth (15%) of young people semi-regularly forget where they put their keys. We've all been there, surely! Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, older generations are much less forgetful, with only 8% of those surveyed reporting that they lost their keys with any sort of regularity.

That was just one survey, though there are a heap to pull information from. Another study calculated that at least 39% of Americans have forgotten one basic piece of information, or lost something in the past week. We're bad at remembering things. We are!

When it's commercial breaks and sitcoms, forgetfulness isn't so much of a big deal. When memory malfunctions and more important things are at stake, there can be a lot of missed appointments, dates, and other opportunities. One thing people seem particularly forgetful with is keeping appointments.

To counter this inevitability, offices and other entities are personalizing their appointment stationery to help patients and clients remember their obligations better. Many businesses will send appointment reminder postcards, personalized sympathy cards, plain old reminder cards, or welcome cards to their member base to keep everyone feeling welcome and on top of things. Sometimes physicians will even use  personalized prescription pads so the patient feels very connected to their care providers, leaving them far more likely to remember appointments and other obligations. Personalized prescription pads are only the beginning, though. There are tons of different ways people use to give themselves reminders!

If you find that you're forgetting some obligations or other basic tasks, consider setting yourself some reminders the same way that your doctor reminds you about appointments! Just make sure you're using them for the important stuff, only -- it's not worth writing yourself a note every time you forget what you were watching during those pesky commercial breaks!