ABC of Improving Your Memory by I Feel Good Magazine - HTML preview

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Chapter 10 Other Memory Tools

Just when you thought you already know a lot of memory tools and techniques, we have more in store for you in this chapter.

Memory Organization

Being disorganized can surely take up a lot of your time, and it can negatively affect

 

your efficiency. Your memory works the same way. Much like folders in a filing cabinet,

 

you can also create mental folders to retain details in an organized manner.

 

How do we do this?

 

We create mental folders out of aspects that we can never forget or that are stored

 

in our long-term memory, like days of the week and parts of the body. For this example,

 

we shall take the parts of the body which are the hair, eyes, nose, lips, shoulders, chest,

 

tummy, thighs, knees, and foot. Please take note that you can choose other body parts

 

that are more familiar to you.

 

Let’s say you have a list of tasks to do. If task number 1 is watering the plants, you

 

can imagine your hair having flowers and leaves growing all over it. The flowers in your

 

hair are happily dancing about as they are enjoying the fresh feeling of water being

 

showered upon them. If task number 2 is cooking fried chicken for dinner, you can

 

visualize your eyeballs to be shaped like whole chicken. The chicken looks so juicy while

 

being fried to perfection.

 

Do this with the rest of your tasks. Assign a task to each file folder and create an

 

exaggerated and humorous visualization for it. Have fun.

 

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The Story Method

This method requires the creation of a whole story, but it doesn’t have to be

 

extensive as long as all the things to remember are included in the story. It establishes a

 

connection between all the objects, where the sequence of events are easier to

 

remember.

 

For example, your best friend requested you to serve these 7 dishes on his

 

extravagant homecoming party, namely: prawn, crab, spinach, salmon, roast beef, pasta,

 

and pizza. To remember them, you can come up with a similar story like this: The prawn

 

and crab were walking side by side until the spinach came and yelled at them to pay their

 

debts. Salmon and roast beef came along to stop the quarrel, but pasta and pizza

 

showered them all with a water hose because of the disrupting noise being created.

 

It doesn’t matter if your story sounds silly. You’re not writing a book or report anyway. And remember, the sillier the story, the easier it is to remember.

The Facts Association

We are continually acquiring items of information regarding all kinds of subjects,

 

and yet when we wish to collect them, we often find the task rather difficult, even though

 

the original impressions were quite clear. This is because we have not properly classified

 

and indexed our bits of information, and do not know where to begin to search for them. It

 

is like the confusion of the entrepreneur who kept all of his papers in a cabinet, without

 

index, or order. He knew that "they are all there," but he had hard work to find any one of

 

them when it was required.

 

_____________________________________________________________ When you wish to consider a fact, ask yourself the following questions about it:

 

1. Where did it come from or originate?

 

2. What caused it?

 

3. What history or record has it?

 

4. What are its attributes, qualities and characteristics?

 

5. What things can I most readily associate with it? What is it like!

 

6. What is it good for—how may it be used—what can I do with it?

 

7. What does it prove—what can be deduced from it?

 

8. What are its natural results—what happens because of it?

 

9. What is its future; and its natural or probable end or finish?

 

10. What do I think of it, on the whole— what are my general impressions regarding

 

it?

 

11. What do I know about it, in the way of general information?

 

12. What have I heard about it, and from whom, and when?

 

If you will take the trouble to put any "fact" through the above rigid examination, you

 

will not only attach it to hundreds of convenient and familiar other facts, so that you will

 

remember it readily upon occasion, but you will also create a new subject of general

 

information in your mind of which this particular fact will be the central thought.

 

The more other facts that you manage to associate with any one fact, the more

 

pegs you will have to pull that fact into the field of consciousness and the more cross

 

indexes will you have whereby you may "run down" the fact when you need it. _____________________________________________________________

7 Principles of Memory

The principles below may be applied to every aspect of your daily life: at home, at

 

school, at work, and in your leisure time. Know that memory definitely involves learning,

 

and both are complimentary activities for better survival and achievement in our modern

 

world.

 

1. Learners learn from their behavior. Thus, learner errors should be minimized in

 

order to achieve better memory and mastery of skills.

 

2. Learning is most effective when correct responses are reinforced immediately.

 

Feedback should be informative and rewarding whenever the response is

 

correct as discussed above regarding memory and motivation. Punishment

 

may be effective if used but data also shows that it may also inhibit learning

 

than increase learning and memory improvement. It may temporarily suppress

 

an incorrect response, but the response tends to reappear when the

 

punishment stops. Punishment can also be emotionally disruptive and may

 

become an interfering cognitive dissonance in the process of learning and

 

storing of information. For example, children who are punished for making an

 

error while reading aloud may become so upset and distracted by the

 

punishment that they will commit more mistakes.

 

3. The frequency of reinforcement determines how well a response will be learned

 

and retained.

 

4. Practicing a response in a variety of setting increases both retention of data and

 

the transferability of these data into other information. This means one may

 

_____________________________________________________________ involve a constant rethinking of ideas or imaging the self in a reactive activity

 

(silently talking to oneself in order to elicit conscious response) in order to

 

enhance better thinking and memory.

 

5. Motivated conditions may influence the effectiveness of positive thinking and

 

memory and may play a key role in increasing the level of performance in

 

memory retention.

 

6. Meaningful learning is more permanent and more transferable than memorized

 

learning. Understanding what is memorized is better than just practicing how to

 

become a good memorizer.

 

7. People learn more effectively when they learn at their own pace. _____________________________________________________________