So you want to improve your memory, huh?

We do not remember days; we remember moments. – Cesare Pavese

It happened again. You forgot about an important meeting. You left your iron on. You had to return home because your forgot your wallet, and as a result you are late again.

Now imagine you are a person who remembers details, dates, facts and figures. Really impressive. Your friends, business partners would call you a smart person and somebody worth associating with.

Let’s learn how to create this kind of mental strength and a system which will help building your brain to be stronger and forget no more.

Mnemonics are memory aid techniques, which can help in memorizing numbers, dates, or facts using your imagination and rhymes.

Try the following memory-boosting techniques to move your brain to a higher level.

Technique 1. How to remember your shopping list 

The following idea was invented by ancient Greeks to prove they were great orators when they were giving their public speeches. It is called Loci System or Memory Palace technique.

Idea: You need to remember a list of products to buy. Sausage, milk, butter, beer, bread and tomatoes.

Now you choose the location. It should be a place which you know well, for example your house.

Next, place all the products in different rooms and locations in your house. Milk is in the bathroom – better – the whole bath is filled with milk. A huge talking sausage is laying on the carpet and saying “hello” to you. The butter is jumping on the bed in your bedroom, tomatoes are watching “Games of Thrones” in the living room, and  the beer is actually drinking tea in the kitchen. Now you can remember, don’t you?

Try to create, vivid, memorable scenery in your mind. If the order of the objects is important, you should place them accoriding to the layout of your place. So put something in the front door, in the hall, next in the living room and so on.

This technique will be helpful in remembering any lists, keywords or points in a presentation

Technique 2. Remembering names

You have a problem with remembering names? Let’s look how we can work on that.  There are ideas how to deal with this too..

Idea 1: When somebody is introduced to you (let’s call this person Mark), you can say: “Nice to meet you. You have a very nice jacket, Adam”.

So you are replying the name and make a connection – Mark = nice jacket. That’s your first connection.

Idea 2: During a conversation try to ask yourself this question. What is his name? Test yourself to remember it better.

Idea 3: Try to repeat Mark’s name in your sentences. For example: What do you think Mark thinks about the new sesason of “House of Cards”?

Idea 4: You are on a business meeting and all participants have not sat down. Take a pen and draw the situation with names of people around the table. The sooner you do that, the more chances are you will still remember the names.

Idea 5: When you really have no idea what that person’s name is, just ask again. There is nothing rude in that. It’s better to do it right now than not remembering during the meeting later.

Technique 3.  Play brain games.

Give your brain a challenge. There are computers and mobile apps that can improve your memory, attention, spatial cognition, processing speed, flexibility or problem solving.

Give a try to Lumosity, Peak or FitBrains and see if it works for you.

The games are funny and engaging. You will have to remember the arrangement of blocks, be quick enough to serve coffee for a mass of clients or quickly add numbers. And you often play against the clock.

Try also things like solving crossword puzzles or play Sudoku.

You can achieve the best results if you do this practice every day.

Technique 4. Remembering lists and facts with Linking System

Here comes another technique called Mnemonic link system.

Idea: You need to remember a list of words. Book, duck, train, ice cream, phone and glasses. How to do that?

Let’s imagine an old book with a pink cover. A talking duck that just looks like Donald Duck. A big, tasty ice cream with vanilla. A green, loud and fast train going to Boston. A ringing phone with a broken front. And then huge red glasses.

Now you need to create a memorable story. Let’s connect all these pieces together.

A talking duck, looking like a Donald Duck is travelling on a green, fast and loud train going to Boston. The Duck is  eating a  big, tasty ice cream with vanilla. On Donald’s nose are the red glasses, and he is reading an old book with a pink cover. Then suddeny, a phone with the broken front starts ringing …

The more colourful, emotional story you can imagine, the more chances are you will remember all the words.

Technique 5. Remembering Numbers

There are just so many numbers that we need to remember in our daily lives. PIN to your card? But wait, you have 3 of them. PIN to your mobile, your social security number. Or when somebody is giving you a phone number and you are talking right now on the phone. Do you always have to wait utill you grab a piece of paper to write it down? You will no longer.

How to deal with this?

The Peg System

A Peg system is a technique for memorising lists of words or digits. Let’s learn from an example.

You have to connect all digits with an image. My favourite idea is to do it by the shape. Try to create an object which best reminds you of the digit. For example:

0 –  ball

1 –  finger

2 –  duck

3-  heart

4 –  flag

5 –  wheelchair

6 –  cherry

7 –  hammer

8 –  woman

9 –  tennis racket

10 – bat and a ball

So you need to memorise all the digits and the objects which they represent. Take your time to do it carefully.

The number to remember is  678 190 545.

You can see a big, red  smiling cherry walking with a hammer in one hand. After the cheery there is a woman with a finger pointing at a gigantic yellow tennis racket that is jumping on a ball. The procession is closed by a shiny, automatic wheelchair with a flag. Oh, there is another wheelchair again!

When you once  memorise a number using this technique, it will be a lot easier to imagine new situations next time as you brain learns how to create more funny and engaging connections.

The most popular example of this technique, which is also some sort of chunking technique, is AIDA – which stands for A – attract Attention, I – arouse Interest, D – create Desire, and A – urge Action

Ready for an example? You have to remember words: presentation, report, Adam, exam, gym, kids. It seems to be a good plan of the day!

We take first letter, which are: P R A E G K. We change an order – so we have K E P R A G. It’ s almost like a Prague – a capital in a country Czech Republic.

So, it all depends on your creativity and imagination.

Technique 7 : Develop good daily habits.

You forgot where your keys are again? Next time say loudly: I’m putting my keys on the kitchen table! If you do it every single day, you will remember for sure where they are. Consistency plays an important role in it.

Conclusion

As you see, all the techniques have something in common.They appeal to your imagination so just mix it with strong emotions and colours into objects and facts you need to remember for better results.

If you want to improve your memory and become a trustworthy person in business or personal life, you have to train. Train your brain. And take time to create a sound system, for example with numbers and images mapped with them  – it will be helpful in remembering phone numbers or PINs.

I hope these techniques will help you become more successful in recalling information, more confident in social situations, and finally you will be remembering names at parties. And remember, your brain is a pretty powerful thing. Now it’s your turn to know it better.

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