Top 10 Memory Hacks [Lifehacker Top 10] - SendMeRSS
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Writing things down, on paper or on-screen, is the best way to make sure you remember important info and tasks, but sometimes you’ve got to rely on your plain old brain to keep essential data sorted and handy. Whether it’s a client’s name, a password or combination you want stored only in your head, or answers for an upcoming test, there are plenty of techniques and tools to help you lock in important stuff and pull it out when needed. After the jump, we round up some memorable memory-boosting hacks. Photo by furryscaly.
10. Nap to improve memory and learning
It may not seem like you’re learning anything when you close your eyes and doze off, but taking a daytime nap can help you reduce interference—the brain’s resistance to learning new material, rather than what it already learned earlier—and help your recall, as suggested in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The key number in a study on nap-learning was 90 minutes, but it seems like general how-to knowledge sinks in better whenever you take any kind of siesta. Photo by cell105.
9. Boost learning power with strategic “distractions”
This doesn’t mean switching from your GRE prep to Nintendo Wii, but switching up your studying from one subject to a slightly different one—moving, say, from one CSS function and then back—forces your brain to try and hold onto the first thing you were focusing on, according to researchers. The momentary distraction might also help reduce your stress level, helping your concentration even further. (Original post). Photo by Sam Pullara.
8. Visualize reminders with the Palace Technique
Whether it’s your home, an office, or some other place, there’s a space most of us can walk through in our minds. Turn that mental space into a list organizer by using the “Palace Technique.” The LiteMind Blog has a good overview of the technique, which has you associating each thing you need to remember with objects you’d see in a walk-through—milk at the front door, printer paper on the floor mat, paper towels on the kitchen table, etc. When you need to remember, just stroll through your (mental) home, and you should recall the associations. (Original post)
7. Draw a name map
Got a meeting with the higher-ups and want to make a positive impression? Bring a notepad or just an index card and map out the players’ names, or just seating positions, as soon as you sit down, along with some identifiers (”Jim/beard, #4/glasses,” and the like). From covering my fair share of board meetings for newspapers, I can attest to the benefits of writing notes and quotes from mapped numbers and later follow-up, rather than hoping your overwhelmed mind can juggle it all at once. (Original post)
6. Recall lists using dramatic imagery
You’re heading out the door, and you’re absolutely sure you’re going to forget to drop off the mail, or buy the milk, or both. Blogger Bert Webb might suggest focusing on an image of dropping letters into a mailbox that looks like a giant milk jug, or perhaps a mailman made entirely of liquid milk. In other words, anything that pushes your list items pass your brain’s boring/mundane filter is far likelier to stick (Original post).
5. Never have to write down countless, unique passwords with a single master pattern
The safest place to store your passwords is in your head, and you don’t want to use one password for all your logins. This isn’t so much a “memory” hack as an efficiency tip, but it only forces your noggin to come up with one really great password system rather than lots of highly forgettable variations. Choose a base password, like an abbreviated or acronym version of a favorite phrase or song, then create a system for changing it up site to site, like using the first three letters of the site name, the first four consonants or first two vowels, whatever fits for you. Clicking “Forgot your password?” and waiting on verification emails will be a distant memory, one you can feel just fine about forgetting.
4. Remember names with repetition techniques
Networking does you no good if you can’t remember what to call the person you’ve already schmoozed the next time you meet them. How-to website eHow recommends simply saying the person’s name multiple times after you’re introduced, as in: “Hi, Bob, it’s nice to meet you. So, Bob, where do you ….” But other tips from CareerBuilder/CNN might work better with the visual-learning crowd, such as writing the person’s name on their forehead in your mind or associating them with a linked image, like imagining someone named Leonard as, say, Leonard Nimoy. (Original posts).
3. Convert long numbers to words
Whether it’s a hardcore software password or your car’s VIN, long strings of numbers are hard to keep straight. Using a technique like the Major system or its modified cousin, the Red Table, the long string of disconnected digits become a lot easier to grok. Check out this conversion helper, which even has its own convenient Firefox extension. (Original post).
2. Make your own memory devices with mnemonics
Many of the tips and techniques we’ve posted stem from the science of mnemonics, which utilizes all the senses to aid learning. If number-to-word methods or vivid images don’t work for you, browse this great introduction and learn how to use three-dimensional images, symbols, and your own sense of humor to encode must-not-forget items and happenings. The most important tip? Make your memory device something funny or positive—we all have enough negative reminders, and have gotten pretty good at channeling them out. (Original post).
1. Train your brain with SuperMemo
Free Windows application SuperMemo helps you remember concepts using spaced repetition. SuperMemo is based on years of research by learning expert Piotr Wozniak, who sought to find the exact moments when one is just about to forget something they just learned. Available in several versions for Windows, Pocket PC and Ye Olde Palm Pilots, SuperMemo is a serious tool for super remembrance. (Original post).
What methods or tricks do you use to make sure you can’t forget the important stuff? How do you augment your paper and program lists with mental training? Which ingenious techniques are we missing? Share your experiences and pointers in the comments.
User comment: Comment from PuissanceYup. 90 minutes of sleep will on average get you through all 4 stages of non-REM sleep along with the important REM sleep for memory consolidation.
User comment: Comment from robdewIf you are going to use a password system as recommended here, remember that when a lame site like www.widgets-you-buy.com gets their user database compromised, the Evil people now have an edge up on guessing ALL your passwords.
robdew
User comment: Comment from Mortimercheck out Anki ([ichi2.net]), multi platform, open source spaced memory software.
Very cool.Otherwise, to remember number, I might seem mad, but I try to remember some arithmetics about them… if my pin is 2348, I remember it starts by 2, then 1 is added for each number, except the last one, which is the start number times the previous…
I must be crazy
User comment: Comment from inbetweenerThe single most useful “trick” (and by far the most well established in research) is simply repetition.
Not necessarily repetition by repeating the same thing again and again, but by reading the same or related information in multiple contexts from multiple angles on multiple occasions.
It is for this simple reason that a football fan knows so much about football or a geneticist knows so much about genetics. Simple repetition.
In one’s professional life or hobby this is often inadvertent, but by consciously harnessing this you can massively increase the amount of information you retain.
The other techniques are more likely optimisation techniques, although admittedly helpful.
User comment: Comment from qpeaseDistractions are the enemy of memory. I really like these tips you just gave us. They are way better than Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory–Has anyone out there ever read that book or bought the course? I got it for 25 cents at a rummage sale a few years back. I thought it was a good deal, maybe it was, but was not worth anymore than that.
For some odd reason I have always been able to remember numbers: Telephone numbers, combinations, etc. I don’t even have to try at this, but when it comes to names, dates, anything else I struggle to recall.
Thank goodness for online reminders and cellphone alarms and text message reminders or I’d be lost.
qpease
User comment: Comment from drjsonI’ve used PDA’s off and on. I don’t know if I’m not busy enough to see the benefit, but typically I would forget most of anything that went into my PDA. So especially for appointments I stopped relying on PDA/Calendar to remind me and just check it once in the morning or as I receive notices.
For notes or anything, I scratch things on paper all the time. Even if I know I’ll throw it away, it’ll help me remember.
drjson
User comment: Comment from rscottaVery good post!
Big fan of #3 and #7. BigDASH’s point about writing it down — even if you lose the thing you wrote — works well for me too. (As always, YMMV.)
rscotta
User comment: Comment from BoterLeave a voice note…
Every cell phone I have owned in the past 6 years has had some form of voice recorder as well as some sort of “shortcut” key.
Set the shortcut key to activate the voice note recorder!
Meeting someone new - after introductions politely step away and record ” The new CIO - Bob Smith - 6 2 - black hair - thin glasses looks a little like a taller Jon doe ” (that’s another hint for meeting new people - almost anyone can be referenced as someone you already know if you think about it)
Need to remember a list - record ” A&P - loaf of bread, a stick of butter, and a gallon of milk”
A Number chain - pretend your a cop or in the military and in a nasally voice ham it up
“one niner fiver four four two six
I repeat that’s
one niner fiver four four two six”when all is said and done - litterally - you have thought about, mentially organized, parsed, and repeated your info. Therefore (at least with me) you’re more likely to remember it.
And If you don’t you have it on “tape”.
User comment: Comment from AKthe47AWESOME POST! I was waiting for you guys to do this soon! Now I can delete my separate bookmarks to the Supermemo post and the brain pegging links.
You guys should include this in your lifehacker book and keep this link as one of your all-time best posts.
Really!
User comment: Comment from akishoreFor me, it’s actually been just having a better diet and exercising! I don’t know why, but after I stopped eating junk food and started exercising on a regular basis, I have seen a noticeable difference in my ability to remember things!
Also, the best technique outside of that for me is to simply repeat the information in my head right when someone tells it to me, rather than thinking about it later.
akishore
User comment: Comment from wickedcupofjoeI set my cell phone alarm to remember tasks. I don’t need the actual name of the task, just the sound makes me recall what I was suppose to do, ect.
User comment: Comment from arod@BigDASH: Plato stated that writing will destroy man’s memory… as he sat down to write his polemic texts.
In order to better hack our memory we need to utilize the primitive brain functions. Emotions are a very strong memory device, which is why women have an easier time remembering everything you did wrong, ever, in an argument. (this is why they win all arguments by the way)
Practice associating important things to remember with an emotion and you will be able to recall it easier down the road.
arod
User comment: Comment from KhulunaI discovered the repetition thing for names by my self. I figured out that if I hear someone’s name 3 times in a conversation, I’m good. But if it’s even as small as two and a half times because there’s an interruption, it all goes out the window.
User comment: Comment from BigDASHWrite it down… Then lose the piece of paper I wrote what I was supposed to remember. Or jot a quick note on my smart phone then forget to check the notes, and forget what I wrote down.
BigDASH
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