Improve Memory With Simple Techniques

Improve memory easily? Yes, there really are some simple techniques, and you can start using them right now. Here are a few to get you started.

1. Tell yourself to remember. When you first learn a person's name, for example, tell yourself, "remember that". This signals your unconscious mind to rank this input higher in importance.

2. Know why you want to remember something. For example, to remember a person, think about how that person will be important to you in the future. If you want to remember fact about something, think about how you'll will need them someday.

3. Visualize the future. Imagine where you'll see a person next, and anything you notice about them. Use this with the last technique. The additional associations will set the memory more firmly in your brain.

4. Retrace your steps. When you forget something, like where you put your keys, you probably retrace your steps. This works, but try it in your mind, as if you were watching yourself from a distance. This can help keep you from blanking out parts of your route, as you did when you first set the keys down.

5. Plan your memory. When you set down the keys on the chair, see yourself walking in and setting the keys on the chair. You could also quickly imagine someone asking where you put them and you answering "on the chair." You'll remember where they are if you do this.

Improve Memory With Proven "Tricks"

I went to a birthday party as a child. A party contest involved looking at a table covered in 15 various items for a few minutes. Then the things were taken away, and then we each got a piece of paper and a pencil. We had to write down as many items as we could remember. I recalled seven or eight, but one little boy got all 15 items, and won the prize.

Years later I learned how he did it. His father taught him a simple technique that none of us other kids knew. The trick is to tie the items together in an imaginative story. Let's say you want to remember the following things: milk, soap, forks, honey, and flowers.

You create a story, and see it vividly in your head: At the bathroom sink, you reach for the soap, but the soap dish is filled with milk, so you wash your hands with that, then comb honey into your hair with a fork, pick up a bouquet of flowers and smile at yourself in the mirror. Repeat each item to yourself as you review this "movie" in your imagination, and you'll remember all five things, even the next day.

Create Good Memory Habits

Guess what the biggest problem with memory techniques is? Remembering to use them. Seriously, there are many great methods, but if you don't have the habit of using them, you'll forget to when you need them most. With any technique, make a conscious effort to use it until it becomes automatic. That's how to improve memory.