Normally peoples’ memories of things they have learned are clearest immediately after they have learned them. They will then forget more and more knowledge as time goes on. After a few months they may only be able to recall only a tiny percentage of what was initially learned. This makes relearning information difficult when it needs to be done.
If you review knowledge frequently, however, then you will be able to keep it fresh and alive in your mind. This makes it easy to recall when you need it with a minimum of effort.
The first step is to spend a few minutes reviewing material immediately after the learning session. This helps you to:
• Confirm that you understand the material.
• Reduce the time needed to relearn information when you need it.
• Improve the quality of future learning, by building on a well-remembered foundation. This helps your mind to make connections and linkages that it would not otherwise make.
A good way of carrying out this review is to rewrite or tidy up notes. You can do this effectively by putting the information learned into a Concept Map.
After this, reviewing information should be relatively easy and need not take long. Carry out reviews at the following times:
• After one day
• After one week
• After one month
• After four months
Review the topic by taking a few minutes to jot down everything you can remember about the subject, and compare this with your notes.
If you review information often, it should stay fresh in your mind, and will be easily accessible when you need it.
Key points: By reviewing information you avoid forgetting information that will be difficult and time-consuming to relearn. You also ensure that you keep information fresh in your mind so that it acts as a foundation for future learning.
The first stage in reviewing information is to rewrite and tidy up notes immediately after learning has taken place. This confirms the structure and detail of information in your mind.
After this, periodically jot down what you can remember on a subject and compare it with your notes. This will show you what you have forgotten and refresh your memory.
Many of the memory techniques used by stage memory performers. With enough practice and effort, you may be able to have a memory as good. Even if you do not have the time needed to develop this quality of memory, many of the techniques here are useful in everyday life.
’Mnemonic’ is another word for memory tool. Mnemonics are methods for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall. The basic principle of mnemonics is to use as many of the best functions of your brain as possible to store information.
Our brains evolved to code and interpret complex stimuli such as images, colors, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language. We use these to make sophisticated models of the world we live in. Our memories store all of these very effectively. Unfortunately information we have to remember is almost always presented in only one way—as words printed on a page. While language is one of the most important aspects of human evolution, it is only one of the many skills and resources available to our minds.
Using Your Whole Mind to Remember : By coding language and numbers in striking images, you can reliably code both information and the structure of information. You can then easily recall these later.
You can do the following things to make your mnemonics more memorable:
• Use positive, pleasant images. Your brain often blocks out unpleasant ones.
• Use vivid, colorful, sense-laden images—these are easier to remember than drab ones.
• Use all your senses to code information or dress up an image. Remember that your mnemonic can contain sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements and feelings as well as pictures.
• Give your image three dimensions, movement and space to make it more vivid. You can use movement either to maintain the flow of association, or to help you to remember actions.
• Exaggerate the size of important parts of the image
• Use humour! Funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than normal ones.
• Similarly rude rhymes are very difficult to forget!
• Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers, road signs, etc.) can code quite complex messages quickly and effectively
Designing Mnemonics: The three fundamental principles underlying the use of mnemonics are imagination, association and location. Working together, you can use these principles to generate powerful mnemonic systems.
Imagination: is what you use to create and strengthen the associations needed to create effective mnemonics. Your imagination is what you use to create mnemonics that are potent for you. The more strongly you imagine and visualize a situation, the more effectively it will stick in your mind for later recall. The imagery you use in your mnemonics can be as violent, vivid, or sensual as you like, as long as it helps you to remember.
Association: this is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a way of remembering it. You can create associations by:
• Placing things on top of each other
• Crashing things together
• Merging images together
• Wrapping them around each other
• Rotating them around each other or having them dancing together
• Linking them using the same colour, smell, shape, or feeling
Location: gives you two things—a coherent context into which you can place information so that it hangs together, and a way of separating one mnemonic from another.
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