How To-69: "How to Remember Anything"

How to Remember Anything

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Everyone experiences times when they just can't seem to remember what they need to. Be it the first 50 digits of pi, the items on the grocery list you left at home, or that set of instructions off wikiHow, these tricks are sure to help you out.

Steps

Visualization

1. Picture an object you will use to visualize things. It could be a set of boxes, a zoo, or your house. In these steps we will use the example of a house, it is common and works well.
   
2. Think about your house. Imagine your room, the bathrooms, the kitchen...
   
3. Learn to store things in these rooms. If you want to remember a grocery list of Fish, Cheese, Pudding and Pineapples, you could imagine your house with a fish in your pool/shower, cheese in your fridge, pudding in your room, and pineapples growing outside in your garden. By picturing these objects in a familiar place, your house, they are much easier to remember.

Mnemonics

1. Learn some strategies like mnemonics. Another way to aid your memory is to use mnemonics.
   
• These are catchy/silly phrases that help you remember something more boring like a math formula or the colors of the rainbow (ROY G. BIV).
  
• Mnemonics can be words in which each letter stands for something (Order of Operations = PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Mult/Division, Add/Subtraction). They could also be a song, a poem, anything you want.
  
• Mnemonics are easiest to remember when they are especially goofy or wild.

Use Stories

1. Use stories to help with remembering.
   
• To imagine grocery lists, for example, think of a story or pattern. In the previous shopping list (Fish, cheese, pudding, pineapple) you could imagine a fish eating cheese pudding in a pineapple under the sea. This is strange enough to remember, much easier then remembering four words.
  
• Now that you know how to remember anything, something such as counting cards becomes much easier. Picture your house with a room for Kings, Queens, etc. As cards are played, theses rooms fill up. You can imagine your house as a hotel if you want.

Visual Reminders

1.It may seem obvious, but one easy way to remember things is to place something in an unusual position, for instance placing things on top of each other. If you make a note that you are doing it to remind you of something else, then the chances are when you see it again you will remember it.

2. The key with this strategy is not to use the same thing repeatedly, or it stops being unique to your brain, and therefore will no longer remind you of things. Keep it different, but still relevant to what you want to remember if possible.

• As an example, say you wanted to remember to buy a new lightbulb for your bedside lamp. One 'unusual' reminder would be to tilt the lamp so that its back (which we assume is flat for the sake of the example) is facing upwards, and then place a coin standing up on top of it. When you see it there, you should be instantly reminded that you had to buy a bulb.
  

3. This method is very simple, but very effective. Even so, everyone is different, and you may try many methods of triggering memory before you find one that suits you.

Books To Read

The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play.
The Memory Book
Secrets of Mind Power
Ageless Memory
The Harry Lorayne Memory Isometrics Course

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