Using Stories to Memorize

The second part of my course last week was on how to memorize better. The key takeaway is that our long-term memory is based on the right brain. However, right brain does not recognize things such as numbers. So we need to create ways so that we can use our right brain more in memorizing stuffs. First is to give meaning. For example, a series of numbers can be remembered by breaking down into some meaningful combinations such as number of days in a week, number of weeks in a month, number of seconds in a minute and so on. A series of alphabets can be memorized by breaking down into meaningful sentence.

Likewise, words can be remembered by building bisociation - an illogical connection which makes us easier to remember. For example, to remember the words book, trousers, house, door, pen, coffee, pay, the, coffee, television, we can say I put the book into trousers and the trousers are inside a house. When we open the door, it is locked, so we used pen to open it. The moment we opened the door, we smelled coffee, and we pay the coffee with television.

The other technique is to use number pegging system. So each number is coded into some imagery. Then we can use that to recall the connection with certain sentences. For example, if we connect one with sun, two with shoes, three with tree, four with door, five with fingers, six with stick, seven with heaven; we can create stories using that one. For example, we can say the second principle of seven habits as I look upon my shoes and walk backward so that we can begin with end in mind.

The challenge now is on how to practice on my own for the things I really need to remember and with my own ways of creating the stories.