The volume of information that an individual may encounter on a daily basis in today's fast-paced world is staggering. Names, places, numbers, formulas and lists of ordered items are just a sampling of what many students, professionals and regular people encounter and need to remember. To accomplish the memorization of the desired information, you can study and apply various techniques. These tools of learning assist your memory through associations and structures that once learned, can facilitate both memorization and retrieval of that information whenever desired.
Step 1
Use acronyms made from the first letters of a group of unordered words that you want to remember. An example of this technique is remembering the names of the Great Lakes by using the word “HOMES" (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).
Step 2
Create a sentence or acrostic made up of the first letters of each word. For example, to remember the correct order and names of the planets of our solar system, you can use the acrostic "Motor Vehicles Essentially Move Just So Unexpectedly Nice" (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). Each planet name represented in the sentence can then be committed to memory.
Step 3
Memorize words to remember in rhyme form or as a song that is familiar to you. The rhythm and volume that you use can also act as memory triggers. A well-known example of this is singing the alphabet to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
Step 4
Convert a name or a location into a vivid picture that you can easily recall. Visualize the name "Kelly Tierney" as a bright, Kelly-green teardrop on someone’s knee.
Step 5
Pick a path or a route that you are very familiar with and then mentally place the items at specific points along the path. Visualize a street map that you know quite well and place the items at different intersections or near stores that have a similar significance.
Step 6
Group numbers together in chunks or larger groups rather than trying to memorize a string of individual numbers. Associate the chunked number with sports figures, or any other common grouping that make sense to you and that will be easy to both memorize and retrieve.
Step 7
Repeat the desired information over and over again, using repetition as the learning tool. The "12 Days of Christmas" keeps repeating a "partridge in a pear tree" as the first item in an ever-growing repetitive list.
Tips and Warnings
- Practice these various techniques, realizing that memorization will become easier once you have mentally prepared the necessary structures and are comfortable with them.
