1. A phone number
Convert each number from 0-9 into a memorable, vivid shape. Number one could be a paintbrush, number two a swan: it’s called the number-shape system, and it takes 10 minutes to build your own. When you need to remember a long number, imagine a colourful narrative involving the shapes to which you’ve assigned each digit.
2. A recipe
These work well with the number-shape system (see 1). Most recipes have fewer than 10 ingredients; if onion is the first ingredient, imagine painting one with a paintbrush, or whatever shape you have assigned to the number 1. Do the same for the rest of the ingredients — in order. If a recipe has a few components, like a pie (the crust, the filling, the sauce), a mind map would help.
3. The contents of a speech
Use a mind map — a hand-drawn diagram in which your central idea is the centre, with other ideas branching off it. Make it colourful and don’t make it too complicated: in a half-hour speech there are only a maximum of 25 keywords. Make those branches go clockwise so you remember the order.
4. The lines of a poem
Repetition is really important, and so is reading it passionately. Read it as a story — visualise it. For “To be, or not to be”, imagine stabbing yourself, i.e. no longer being, or puffing your chest out to show you’re very much alive. Use rhythm and energy. For “that is the question”, you could point to symbolise “that”, and make a question mark with your hand for the rest of the line. Motion and emotion will help you.
5. Contents of books
Again, a mind map can help here. Try having different branches for things like themes, vocabulary, setting and characters.
6. Directions
The world gives you the palace; all you’ve got to do is use it. Be aware of visual cues within a route, such as a petrol station or lamppost, and the distances between them. Use your senses to vivify a landscape and you’ll remember it for next time.
7. Tasks in a busy day
There’s a system for scheduling used by advanced memory technique users, but a mind map is an easy way to keep on top of things. I met a woman who had a map with a branch for her, a branch for her husband and a branch for her child, and then a few keywords for what they all had to do. She put that on the fridge, and it helped everyone keep track of things.
8. Which pills to take on which day
Colour-code your pills. Put them on a calendar, or a mind map of the week. In the map, you could have a pill in the middle, or a picture of you really healthy, and then at the end of each of the branches you have the relevant coloured pill.
9. The name of someone I’ve just met
We try so hard to remember other people’s names that we often end up looking at their shoes. Try and get into the habit of looking at their faces, as an artist or a photographer might, and then try to associate the face with the name. Try to use their name about five times in conversation. And use your own, to help other people in the same way. They’ll really appreciate the effort.
10. A shopping list
Use your mind palace. Take a familiar place, identity “loci” — places where you could put things, such as on a table — and then vividly imagine putting each item on one of the “loci”. Go through them in order and you’ll remember the whole list.
11. Where the car’s parked
This has happened to most of us, because when we stop and get out of the car we’re thinking about where we’re about to walk to, whether it’s a designer store or a new restaurant. Stay awake when you park, and be alert to landmarks around you. It’s in your head somewhere, and worrying will make it worse. Rewind the tape of your memory, from the beginning of your journey onwards. If you still can’t remember it, get a taxi.
12. A family member’s birthday
You could use the number-shape system to memorise the birthday, but you have to keep the date in your mind. Identify the friends and family whose birthdays you don’t want to forget, go through that mental list from time to time, and when you come across something one of them might like, buy it and keep it somewhere prominent. If you’ve bought something in advance, you won’t miss the birthday.
13. Where I put my keys
People lose their keys when they throw them down without thinking. Train your autopilot to fly your keys back to the same terminal each day — a hook, or a bowl. If you’ve lost them, think to when you last had them, and cycle forwards through your memory.
14. Historical dates
Use the “major” system, in which numbers are pegged to a consonant sound. When you have more than one number, you can make words. Here’s an example: 1666, the Great Fire of London. Drop the 1, if you already know which millennium we’re talking. In the major system, a 6 can be a soft G — or a “sh”. So 666 could be “ash, ash, ash!”
15. A new password
Even if it’s a meaningless string of letters and numbers, you can memorise a password by associating each letter and number with an object. So if there’s a B, that could stand for “banana”, and if there’s a number 5, you could associate that with a hive because of the rhyme. Create an imaginative narrative involving each association in turn — a banana being wedged into a hive and so on — and you will remember it.
