It’s funny how reliant I’ve become on technology to remember stuff. I have alerts to remind me of upcoming birthdays – at least 5 days in advance so I can arrange for gifts. I also have phone numbers, recipes, DIYs and other items that would be good to just remember stored in my Pocket PC. 20 years ago, my PIM or Personal Information Manager was my brain and a Franklin Planner. Today, I leave most of that up to my Pocket PC.
But there’s a twinge of regret that I can’t remember everything I used to. If I could remember more, I wouldn’t spend so much time searching. To commiserate with this feeling of memory loss and add some tricks that might improve the memory Tamim Ansary has a post that can help. 12 Memory Tricks is a collection of the strategies he is using to gain back some of that memory lost in the recent technology boom.
I haven’t has as much luck with his #4 Chunking or some of the more common association tricks. They seem to be too much work – I might as well just memorize stuff if I have to write a complete short story to remember a dozen items or so.
Personally, I find that relaxing is my best memory trick. If I am not rushed or feeling hurried, I can often relax and coax memories to come to the surface. Even dreams that I wanted to remember but forgot in the morning hours. If I sit still and relax, I can almost always bring them back.
What’s your most reliable memory trick? Please share in the comments…
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I agree with you…Often the amount of time it takes for you to use the “tricks” is longer than it would take to just memorize things.
There is one trick that I found to work pretty well though. Since I am a visual learner, I remember things much easier if I attach it with a picture or an image…
example: If I need to remember a phone number I’ll write it down and remember the visual image of the written number or a phone key pad…
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