Search:

How To Remember Anything: A Simple Guide

Everyone wants a good memory but how do you get one? This guide will help you to learn to remember anything.
Remembering any item of information can take time and effort but there are a number of simple things you can do to make it easy to remembering anything.

Be interested in what you need to remember. If you are interested in the information you need to remember it will be much easier to lock it into your memory.

Break the information down into smaller, more manageable, chunks to remember.

Associate what you already know with what you need to remember.

Make the information interesting so that it jumps out of the page at you. For example, where possible make the information (and connections, as we will discuss later):

COLOURFUL

VIBRANT

MOVE

DIFFERENT

FUNNY

BIZARRE

EXCESSIVELY LARGE

EXCESSIVELY SMALL

UNUSUAL

OK, these are general principles to bear in mind but what about specific techniques. I’ll discuss specific memory techniques that you can use right away now.

The Number Rhyme System
This system gives you easy to remember images that you can then link your new information to.
1= Pen
2= Shoe
3= Tree
4 = Door
5 = Hive
6 = Sticks
7 = Heaven
8 = Gate
9 = Vine
10 = Hen
If you need to remember 10 items of information you can easily link information to these ten items. This will also let you easily remember what position your information is at, if this is important to you.
Obviously the limitation of this system is that it only provides you with information for numbers 1 – 10. However, I have developed my own system which I have called the ‘IMP System’.   This is an eBook that gives simple to remember images for numbers 1-100. It also gives images for 0 and 00 in addition to each of the 100 marks i.e. 200, 300, 400 etc.
The IMP System also lets you remember numbers easily because you automatically associate the numbers with these easy to remember images. If you need to remember long numbers then you simply link the easy to remember images together in a string.

The Link System:
This is simply the act of linking one item of information to another. Again you would make the images colourful, interesting, vibrant and funny etc so that they stand out in your mind.
How this works:
Let’s take the example of a shopping list (although any information could in theory be used). You need to remember :
Bananas, tomatoes, beans, milk, cornflakes etc.
I would first think about the supermarket and link to this an image of a large vibrant picture of bananas. Perhaps the bananas are fluorescent. To the image of the bananas you then link tomatoes. Perhaps you are peeling the banana and inside is a ripe shiny tomato that shouts ‘eat me’ to you. You then link tomato to the beans. The tomato might pop as you hold it and out pops a tin of beans. And so on for the rest of the list.
This is a great quick and easy method of memorising a list of items. The only downside to this is that you cannot recall the number an item occupies in your list but then this might not be necessary.

The Roman Room Method
Basically, this is a method of using the already familiar to remember the unfamiliar.
This can be used to remember a list of items or a number of chunks of information.
How it works:
Basically, think about your house and the first room you get to as you enter it. Let’s say this is the kitchen.
As this is your house you will no doubt be able to recall, with very little effort, the layout of that room starting from the left and working your way round to the right clockwise. So you might start with the fridge, dishwasher, microwave, clock on the wall, television etc.
You now link or ‘peg’ the items in your unfamiliar list to these familiar items one by one.
So let’s say you are remembering a simple shopping list and the first thing you need to buy are bananas. You link your first item in the kitchen, fridge, with bananas. Use the general rules above to make the link interesting, unusual, colourful etc. For example, imagine the bananas extremely big sticking out of the fridge door and perhaps when the door shuts on them they explode.
You now have an image locked in your mind for the first position. You continue this with the other items you need to remember and the other positions in your room: dishwasher, microwave, clock etc.
You could utilise a number of key positions in your room and of course use all the rooms in your house for memory pegs. Once you have exhausted your own house move onto the houses of other family members and friends to give you an enormous number of memory positions to link information to.
Just remember to make the connections colourful, vibrant and unusual etc.

Remembering Numbers:
Many people need to remember numbers whether these are prices, phone numbers, dates in history or perhaps peoples Birthdays.
There are a number of methods which convert each number 0-9 to letters. These letters are then used to create words which can then be remembered. This can be quite time consuming however.
The easiest way to remember numbers, that I have found is to first create in your own mind images that you will always associate with each number. For example, above we saw that 1 = pen and 2 = shoe etc. Therefore, whenever we need to use the number 1 we can immediately think of a pen. Similarly, whenever 2 occurs we can think of a shoe.
This would be time consuming, remembering longer numbers if we only used the numbers 0-9. As I explained earlier I have created a list of images for numbers 1-100 and this is contained in my eBook ‘The IMP System’. (If you would like to learn more please visit my website www.memorysystem.co.uk to obtain the eBook as an instant download).
The images in the IMP System are images that are very easy to remember themselves. Let’s take a look at some examples from my own ‘Imp System’.
I created a theme for groups of numbers so that it makes it easy to remember the associations.
Let’s take an example. In the Imps System I themed the numbers 11-19 as parts of the body as follows:
11 = finger (think of the 1 as a finger)
12 = eyes (you have two eyes)
13 = ear (the three looks like an ear)
... and so on.
These are easy to remember which immediately gives you the base association to use to link to.
The system gives you a simple to remember image for each number and the numbers are grouped into themes to make it even easier to remember each association.
So once you have your associations for each number what then?
Well, once you have an association for each number it becomes extremely simple to then use what you know to remember what you need to know. Remembering longer numbers is then just a simple case of linking your images together.
You can also remember non numerical information as you can use the numbers as a peg system . You simply peg the information you want to remember to each of the image associations.   This will also give you a way of remembering the order and numerical position of the information being remembered.
Remembering Names
Do you ever meet someone and cannot remember their name later? I used to have the same problem but there is an easy way to remember someone’s name.
The first thing to do is after hearing their name to repeat it. Use the name in conversation with that person. The act of repeating the name should help to lock the name in your mind.
What you then do is think about someone you already know with the same name. For example, say you have just met someone called Frank and you already know someone by that name. You then connect the person you already know with the person you have just met. The way to do this is to think about things that the two Franks have in common. Perhaps they both have the same spiky hair. Perhaps they are both short or have the same shaped/sized nose. This all helps to remember the name of this person.
One other method is to take a feature of their face and to use this to then link to their name. For example, if the person has large ears and their surname is Castle you can imagine a castle with large ears making the image of the castle in your mind. When you meet that person and see their large ears you can immediately be reminded of their surname.

To Conclude:
Remembering anything is not easy but it can be. Sometimes you will need to prepare the ground work so that what you need to remember in the future becomes so much easier for you at the required time.
For example, in the case of the roman room method think about the rooms of your house. Take the time to move around the room in your mind and lock into it the positions of the items you will use to peg future memory items to. In this way and if you continue to practice you will find that using the Roman Room system when you need it will be easy for you.
Also, and again on the point of the Roman Room system I would advise that whenever you go anywhere new to think about the layout of the room. When you leave go back over the layout in your mind so that this new place can also become a place to peg items to in your mind.
Also, the more you know the more you will find to connect to what you wish to remember.   You will find that you have more familiar connections with which to use. This in turn allows you to remember more.
Be interested in learning and bear in mind that being interested will improve your memory.
One further point to remember is that the more you use these systems and your memory in general the easier it becomes to remember information. Strive each day to remember what you hear, see and learn and you will soon find that you are capable of remembering anything.
Good luck in your pursuit of the perfect memory.

Article Source: http://www.outleted.com

Pete Wilton has been interested in memory methods for many years. After researching a number of systems he developed the ‘IMP System’. This is available as an instant eBook download from his site: IMP System The ‘IMP System’ extends what you have learned in respect to the number rhyme system giving you even more, easy to remember, images for numbers to 100 and beyond. Thus you will soon be remembering numbers, or pegging information to numerical positions, in no time at all with the IMP System">IMP System.

Please Rate this Article

Not yet Rated