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eLearning Series: Time Management
How Can I Manage My Time Better?
( 50 articles in this series )
Improve
Your Memory:
5 Ways To Remember Anything
You are walking down the aisles of the grocery
store in what appears to be a daze; at home you were so clear
on the three items you needed, but as soon as you arrived at
the store, your mind became a blank canvas and you are desperately
hoping for a sliver of memory as you walk down the sections
of the store. Similarly, you are running errands and have the
nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you are forgetting
something really, really important. Two hours later you remember:
your dentist’s appointment -- for which you are now one hour
late. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to remember these little
things without the need of copious sticky notes, reminder messages
on the voice mail, and other mnemonic aids? Is it even possible
to remember so much? The answer is a resounding yes, and five
simple ways will help you to remember practically everything!
First and foremost, determine
what amount of information you would like to remember. Let’s take the grocery list we mentioned
earlier. A relatively short list of items (such as the three
things most commonly found on a shopping list: milk, eggs,
and bread) can still be a stumbling block to many. Larger lists,
such as an entire shopping list for a week’s worth of groceries,
will require different methods of memorization, while very
large lists, such as a shopping trip with a large shopping
list and a variety of other errands that accompany the trip
to the grocery store will again make use of a different technique.
Once you have determined the amount of information to be remembered,
you may now link this information with an adequate memorization
tool
Know
how to remember short lists. Short lists are perfect
for the “link method” which is a very simple yet effective
mnemonic technique. Using the items of your shopping list,
create associations between them and a vivid image containing
these very items. Thus, a list containing “milk, eggs, and
bread” may suggest the image of a farm, where wheat is ground
into flour to make bread, while the farmer’s wife is milking
the cows and collecting the eggs from the henhouse. Since all
the items naturally fit into the above scenario, it will be
easy to retrieve this information.
Remember
the medium sized lists. If you are attempting to
remember the shopping list for an entire week‘s worth of groceries,
for example, you may wish to employ the “Roman room system.”
Using this tool, you are encouraged to imagine a room in which
all of the items on your list are strategically placed. You
may wish to imagine your kitchen, for example, with its refrigerator,
stove, and cabinets. Imagine yourself opening the refrigerator
and seeing milk, eggs, and yogurt. For unusual items, such
as chestnuts, you may wish to add an open fire to your imaginary
kitchen, over which chestnuts are roasting. Water chestnuts,
on the other hand, may be remembered as roasting over an open
fire located underneath your sink. In your imagination there
is no end to the possibilities!
A
mental map will help you to remember not only the trip to
the grocery store, but also the trip to the dentist’s office,
veterinary clinic, dry cleaner’s, and gas station. Picture
a town square with a tree. In this tree is a cat, while underneath
it a car is parked. The car has a vanity plate with two teeth,
and inside hangs some dry cleaning. If you picture this town
square with this particular tree as vivid as possible, you
will have not problem remembering to run all the other errands
that are tied into your trip of the grocery store.
The fifth and final way to easily remember practically anything
is the avid use of acrostics. While these little sayings may
actually involve the use of pencil and paper, they are powerful
indeed, and will eventually be remembered easier than the litany
of information they actually contain. Simply use the first
letter of each word you are trying to remember and then use
these letters to make a complete sentence. “Go East Lad, Never
Down” may be a very useful acrostic to help you remember the
names of the first five book of the Hebrew Bible, namely, Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Number, and Deuteronomy.
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SolveYourProblem.com
: 2006
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