I once had a drum teacher (Afro-Cuban style, using drums like the djembe and ashiko) who, along with being a great player and drum builder, prided himself on his memory. I remember a time when he criticized people for writing down things like phone numbers, with the implication being people were lazy if they didn't work to memorize things like that.

This bothered me until I read Kerry Gleeson's book "The Personal Efficiency Program." In "Forget Remembering" he says:

Most people I speak with take a certain degree of pride in their ability to remember "everything" that needs to be done. It is a mental game they play. While that may have been okay at one time, the pace of today's work and home life has accelerated and the volume of activities we could or should keep up with has grown so much that it is impractical to expect to keep on top of 1,000 things to do. No doubt you do remember these things to do, but it may not be at the time it's most convenient or effective, such as three o'clock in the morning, when you sit up in bed and think, "Oh, I have to take care of ..." This constant thinking about, planning out, tracking everything you need to do - remembering everything you need to follow up on - simply overwhelms people.

Great stuff! More here, if anyone's interested: GTD: A tool for *forgetting*?