system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are quotidian events stored differently in memory?

Every day I do very similar things: take shower, put contacts in, take medicine, fill water bottle in backpack, etc.  Sometimes it's genuinely confusing to remember if I did or didn't do something, because I've done it hundreds or thousands of times before.

This seems to fall between long- and short-term memory.  I know where my contact case is in a strange hotel, even though I put it down somewhere 12+ hours before.  I can find it in the dark the next morning.  But a day later, there's no particular trace of these daily events.  I probably couldn't even describe the hotel room with accuracy.

Are these types of events creating long-term memories that are ruthlessly pruned because of no reinforcement, or are they stored differently?
gpt
There is some pruning going on, if you remembered every detail from your daily life you would be a rain man and probably not function "normally." It could also be mentioned that a lot of memories are stored in relation to your physical environment. For example, if you returned to that hotel room you'd probably easily recall the exact spot you put your contacts before, because that memory was stored in association with your memory of that location. As far as repetitive things like showers, it's easy to forget if you took one today because you have e a ton of competing/overlapping memories of the same thing, and your brain has to search thru them for the most relevant incidence. Not sure if that fully answers the question but there ya go. Out of date psych degree here.