Memory Training Fundamentals: A Simple Formula To Memorise & Recall
These are the basics path to follow when memorising a piece of data, whatever the data may be. Simply put, by following this simple formula, anyone can memorise and recall whatever they decide to either keep it a short or a long term data.
Make A Decision To Memorise It If You Want To Remember It
Memorisation takes place in the mind. Everything you want to memorise using the methods taught in improving memory, will be memorised using your mind, and your mind’s eye.
This is at its most basic, and it is that you first have to decide to memorise whatever it is you want to memorise so that you can remember whatever it is you want to remember. You cannot remember anything if you have not memorised it already.
If something has not happened, you would not have a recollection of it. There would be nothing to remember.
On the other hand, you’d remember many of the actions you were involved in during your day of activities. You would have the ability to think mentally and picture of your day, all the things that have happened, and the conversations you had with people, and everything else in between.
So this is the same path to follow when you want to memorise anything you like. You first need to decide to memorise it, so you can remember it later. No surprises here. You would convert whatever you like to memorise into a quick movie using the power of your imagination with your mind’s eye.
Let see how..
How Our Brain Memorise & Remember
Encode & Decode Mentally
At it’s basic, we encode the data to memorise it, and decode the same data to recall it.
Encoding: By mentally converting every single data into an image, adding actions and emotions to strengthen the data, and by placing those images on a familiar route. Simply imagining all of those images on that route in your mind’s eye.
Decoding: Mentally walking the same route, and convert them back to data again. Again, imagining all of those images on that same route in your mind’s eye.
Actions
Actions are what happens during your day. Many events happens, and each might be different than another, but your brain records it like a movie. This is because you collect all of that data and you by default convert your day into moving images without any force. Just like watching a movie, you remember it all because you can mentally see it as a movie. This is how our brain memorise and remember a piece of information. Our brain sees it all as pictures, and the actions that happens in those pictures.
Emotions
When I first learned about how our brain store the information, I couldn’t believe how well it worked even though I thought it was a little silly, but funny at the same time. When I said “a little silly”, I never knew that “absurdity” was the key to memorise almost anything! It was a shock, but worked like magic.
Along with absurdity, funny, sad, violence also works really well too.
Simply put, when you mentally memorise a piece of information, think of how it would look like if there was something funny about it, or sadness about it, violence, or even absurdity at its most stupid. Adding emotions to your actions will strengthen the neurons in your brain, and you’ll have it memorised and remember with ease. Sometimes you may find that it’s almost not easy to forget! This is of course good for long term memory.
Long Term Memory
This is where you’d store different subjects for different interests. To store the data in your brain for a long term, you’d have to use a memory palace for each of your subject.
Memory Palace
This is known as “Mol”, or “The Method Of Loci”. When you mentally memorise a piece of information, this is where you store it, in a memory palace.
What do we mean by a memory palace?
A memory palace is a palace you know well like your home, or school, or your office, car park, and other places that has rooms in them. It’s basically a building with rooms just like homes and offices. And you use that palace as a mental location, so that you can put those images around that palace to memorise your information.
Let’s say we have a pin number of “1920” we’d like to memorise for ABC Bank.
We would convert 19 into an image, 20 into another image, add actions and emotions, and then place that final little movie in the front of the entry door at ABC Bank. In it’s basic that’s exactly how easy it is to do. You’d mentally connect an image for 19, image for 20 by adding actions with emotions with the images, and simply see the whole thing mentally happening at that location.
Home as your first memory palace
A quick and often very useful memory palace to start with is your home. Start with your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, hallway. This is a Five-Room-Palace.
In each room, stand at the door, and choose another five spots. Start with the bedroom, point your finger to the very first spot and say “One”, then point on the next spot, and say “Two”, point to the next and say “Four”, and point your finger to the last spot and say “Five”.
So on your first recall location, there may be the “bed” there, your second location may hold a “bedside table”, your third a “Mirror”, forth a “Chair”, fifth a “Bag”.
So now you can go back and notice all the furniture, and now call as “One – Bed”, “Two – Table” etc until all five locations and the items on those locations are learned.
So now your first room has five other spots. These five spots are “The Recall Locations”. And on those locations, make a mental note of all the item there. With five rooms and five locations in each, it would mean you have a Five-Rooms-Palace with a total of 25 Locations. When you need to memorise more long terms information, you’ll need to build more palaces. Many easy methods are available to build more palaces with ease. When you build more palaces, just make sure to create a list of them alphabetically so it’s easier to memorise and remember!
POIPAR: The Formula To Memorise Anything
So let’s see how we memorise any kind of information using the simple formula below.
Plan | Organize | Images | Place | Actions | Recall
The formula here is what we do before, during and after we memorise. It follows a path, so you can plan to make a start, and end it in a Recall whenever you have the need to recall.
So let’s dive into what each one is in the order.
PLAN
Let’s say we want to memorise the details of a new person we have just met, and we want to memorise their name and phone number, and their job title.
The way you plan it out is to think of how many details we need to memorise first as a list;
Name: Mark
Job Title: Banker
Phone: 01 23 45 67 89
So we have “Mark”, “Banker”, “01 23 45 67 89” with a 10 digit phone number.
ORGANIZE
we would need an image for “Mark”, and image for Banker, and five images for the phone number. It would also mean that we would need a memory palace with at least 6 locations, 1 for the name and job title, and five spots for the phone number.
IMAGES
Let’s now find the images we need to encode the data, so we can memorise it easily.
Mark: Think of this person with a “Huge Check-Mark” on his forehead.
Banker: Think of him counting dollar bills to you at your local bank.
Now lets find the images for the number digits. We’ll use the images from the Shaper System.
01: A Spear
23: Swan
45: Chair
67: Hangman Rope
89: Snorkel
PLACE
This is your memory palace. We will place the data into the locations in your palace.
Let’s say this palace is the building of your local bank. And you have chosen 6 locations within it, and know the locations inside out.
We will place all 6 data into the 6 locations we have at the bank.
ACTIONS
On your first location at the bank, think of Mark with a Check-Mark on his forehead, Counting out money to you at the bank’s counter. This is known as Pair-Linking a Person. We have linked the Mark as a Banker using a single location. When we pair-link, we connect the first and the second together by an action.
Actions make images move. Simply put, you mentally imagine that the person Mark literally has a Check Mark on his forehead. Closing your eyes while imagining wil help form the images.
On your next 5 locations;
Simply place the “Spear” on the first spot mentally. To strengthen this image add actions and emotions. Think of yourself in the scene, and that you have the spear in your hand, and attacking the banker.
Place the “Swan” on the next location. To strengthen this image add actions and emotions.
Be in the scene, Have the Swan pecking into your leg while at that location. Close your eyes, and imagine this happening with your mind’s eye.
Repeat this process with all the rest of the images. And there you have it. You have just memorised all the data.
Adding actions with a forced emotion will strengthen the whole animated image. What you are doing is creating a mini scene, just like a movie scene. This is what our brain remembers. Our brain remember animated images, actions and emotions that happens when they are a pair or chain linked together, which creates the little scenes, or mini-stories that are memorable.
Also note: When you build a memory palace, make sure to learn all the items such as furnitures and other items, so that you can use them as “Recall Triggers” as well as “Action Triggers”.
Recall Locations: This is the spot where you store your data.
Recall Triggers: These are the items that are already at the recall locations.
Action Triggers: These items are used as “Pegs to create a “Pair-Link” between the data we want to memorise and the item at the location by simply adding an Action & Emotion.
RECALL
Now is the time to “Revisit The Palace Mentally”
This is where we Encode the data back to its original.
Simply close your eyes, and go to your first location at your local bank.
Who do you see? Mark. Yes. He also still has a Check-Mark on his forehead
Go to the next location, what do you see? You see yourself attacking the banker with a spear, you already know that translates to “01”.
Go to the next location, what do you see? You see yourself being pecked by a Swan, you already know that translates to “23”.
And so on with the rest of the locations.
So now you can remember Mark, his phone number, and his job Title using a few locations in your memory palace.
For more advanced memory training, click here for the full memory course “How To Memorize”.
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