Do you remember what you were doing at this time yesterday? Or last week? Do you even remember what the headline was? (You can just look at it again.) If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, these memory techniques may be just what you need.
Do you remember how many people you passed were wearing hats on your way to work this morning? Can you find within the dusty recesses of your memory what you ate for dinner six days ago? Do you even remember what you were doing yesterday?
It would be wonderfully useful to be endowed with the elusive photographic memory and be able to recall details such as the ones stated above.
In a work context, remembering the name and number of someone you were introduced to, or being able to recall a sequence of events, can be the difference between seizing an opportunity and missing it. It could also be helpful in learning languages, which is a high priority for many, from a career development perspective.
But an extreme capacity to remember details is a skill reserved for the most intellectually gifted among us, right? Perhaps not so.
There are some simple memory techniques that you can utilise to help you remember things, and they’re not even that difficult to learn. In fact, CashEuroNet UK was able to compile a brilliant infographic detailing seven such methods.
If you’re looking to remember long sequences of numbers, for example – perhaps you want to dazzle someone by rattling off Pi digits off the top of your head – you could try segmenting the sequence into smaller chunks (which this infographic calls ‘chunking’). One 12-number sequence is far more difficult to remember than three four-digit numbers. You could even try regrouping numbers as dates, eg 241248 becomes 24/12/48.
You can map a speech on to a familiar location (your home, for example), with each part of the speech being contained in a different ‘room’, and then imagine yourself walking through the location in order to recall your speech. This technique has sometimes also been called using a ‘mind palace’.
For some more advice, check out the infographic below.
Infographic: CashEuroNet UK
