Richards - How to Remember Things: 10 Memory Tricks to Recall Everything

We have to remember a lot of things by heart, like scientificprocesses or the position of musical notes on sheet music. How do we make iteasier for our brains to retain all this information so that we can access itat the touch of our fingertips? Use fun tricks (mnemonics) to help ourselvesalong; because if its fun, well probably remember it! In this chapter, welook at some simple mnemonics, and in the subsequent chapters well discussmore involved memory tricks.

1.Acronyms

Everybody loves shortcuts nowadays. Thats why acronyms are sopopular. Acronyms help you remember simple lists, for example: MEGS for yourshopping list of milk, eggs, garbage bags and sugar. They also help youremember a list of things that need to be in order, like the notes in thespaces of the treble clef stave: FACE.

Take the first letter of each word in the list you want to remember.Arrange them in a cute, memorable way that will stick in your brain. Voila!Youve remembered the stages of cell division!

IPMAT:Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telephase

Keepin mind , though, that memorizing it doesnt meanunderstanding it. Also, sometimes the letters just wont arrange themselvesinto something memorable.

2.Acrostics

Silly sentences are even more fun thansingle words so they will stick better in your head. Its also easier toarrange the initial letters of random words into a sentence. Take the spacenotes in the bass clef stave.

Isit easier to remember A, C, E, G, or that All Cows Eat Grass?

While acrostics are fun and easy, they sometimes take too much timeto come up with until youve had some practice. And like acronyms theyre onlysuitable to remember things with, you still need to understand what you are memorizing first.

3.Songs & Rhymes

Have you ever had an annoying tune stuck inyour head, despite whatever you do to stop humming it? Thats because itscatchy. Its rhythm and rhyme act like glue to adhere to your brain cells. Whata useful and powerful memory tool!

Think of your childhood. How did you learnyour alphabet - 26 letters that had to be arranged in the right order? You sangthem to a popular tune, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Fast forward to yourLiterature lecture in university. Youre wondering how on Earth those Greekstorytellers of old remembered the whole of Homers Odyssey? They sang it! Andthen theres the ever popular but slightly creepy rhyme that helps you rememberthe 6 queen consorts of King Henry VIII and how they came to their ends.

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced beheadedsurvived.

4.Chunking

If you need to remember numbers, say thetelephone number that you just got off that cute guy, you chunk it. That is,you break it up into a few groups. So if the guys phone number is 7683-3359,you break it up into 76 83 33 59.

You can break things up in any way thatworks for you, some people are more comfortable grouping the same numberstogether: 768 333 59. Most of the time, however, the rhythm you fall into whenreciting pairs helps with memory, especially if you emphasize the second itemin the pair: milk, EGGS, sugar, BUTTER, cheese, JAM. Yes, this technique canalso be used for other things.

Try It Out

Make up an acronym for the list ofmnemonics described here:

Acronyms, Acrostics, Songs, Chunking

Remember, the words in this list donthave to be in order, but you can use this technique to remember things in ordertoo.

Make up an acrostic with the same list.

Try singing it to a tune or rapping it.Yes, rap it. I recently watched the 206th episode of the popularforensics expert series Bones during which they rapped out the major bones ofthe body. I cant get it out of my head now!