Kelly tells Brian to simply remember the name Mr. VEM J. SUN, and he can easily recall the correct order of the planets: M ercury, V enus, E arth, M ars, J upiter, S aturn, U ranus, and N eptune. Figure 1. This is a knuckle mnemonic to help you remember the number of days in each month.

Months with 31 days are represented by the protruding knuckles and shorter months fall in the spots between knuckles. credit: modification of work by Cory Zanker. If you have ever watched the television show Modern Family , you might have seen Phil Dunphy explain how he remembers names:.

The other day I met this guy named Carl. Now, I might forget that name, but he was wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt. Where do fish live? The ocean. What else lives in the ocean? Hello, Co-arl. It seems the more vivid or unusual the mnemonic, the easier it is to remember.

The key to using any mnemonic successfully is to find a strategy that works for you. Memory Championships. He explains a mnemonic device called the memory palace.

You can also watch this video as Foer gives an example of how he uses the memory palace to memorize the digits of pi. Some other strategies that are used to improve memory include expressive writing and saying words aloud.

Expressive writing helps boost your short-term memory, particularly if you write about a traumatic experience in your life. Masao Yogo and Shuji Fujihara had participants write for minute intervals several times per month.

The participants were instructed to write about a traumatic experience, their best possible future selves, or a trivial topic. The researchers found that this simple writing task increased short-term memory capacity after five weeks, but only for the participants who wrote about traumatic experiences.

What if you want to remember items you need to pick up at the store? Simply say them out loud to yourself. Feel silly, saying random grocery items aloud? This technique works equally well if you just mouth the words.

These techniques can also be used to help you study. Consider the case of Simon Reinhard. In , he sat in front of 60 people in a room at Washington University, where he memorized an increasingly long series of digits.

On the first round, a computer generated 10 random digits—6 1 9 4 8 5 6 3 7 1—on a screen for 10 seconds. After the series disappeared, Simon typed them into his computer.

His recollection was perfect. In the next phase, 20 digits appeared on the screen for 20 seconds. Several studies have shown that studying right before you sleep can help with remembering the material :.

If you already know how to say the alphabet in order, you can use that ability to remember long lists of other information, using a technique called the Alphabet Peg System.

First, make a list of the letters in the alphabet and think of an animal that begins with that letter. Then make a list of the facts that you want to memorize, for example, the periodic table of elements.

Create a mnemonic image for each item in the list, like this:. To memorize the elements, create a mental picture that links each item from one list with the corresponding item and the other list. Review your images a few times, and then recall the list by walking through the alphabet letters A, B, C, D, etc.

You can create as many alphabet peg list as you want, using different animals, fruits, vegetables, peoples names, or anything else that can be linked with the letters. After you learn alphabet pegs above , try learning how to use Number Pegs.

To make a simple number peg system, create a mnemonic image for each number from 1 to For example, you could use pictures that rhyme with the numbers:. Once you have created the pegs, then make a list out of the facts you want to memorize.

For example, you could memorize a shopping list:. There are many ways to expand on this technique, which you can learn about by creating a free account on this site. You can make a peg list out of any information that you know in order. You probably know the months in order, so you could create an image for each month like this adjust for your local climate :.

To memorize facts with the list, attach your mnemonic image of the fact to the mnemonic image for the month. Then, to recall the facts, walk through the months in order, and convert all the images back to facts.

The only limit is your imagination. Chunking is a mnemonic technique where you break up the information you want to memorize into smaller chunks. You can see an example of this in the telephone numbers of many countries.

For example, in the United States, phone numbers are chunked in groups of 3, 3, and 4 like this:. Whenever you see an overwhelming amount of information that you have to learn, try breaking it into chunks. The chunks can be grouped by their order, by category, or in whatever way makes sense to you.

The Lanier Verbatim Memory System is a complex memory technique for memorizing text word-for-word. It requires knowledge of several other memory techniques and is not for the faint of heart.

Even if you never end up using it, the design of the system is quite interesting. Creating a story out of information can make it memorable.

To use this technique, put all of the information that you want to memorize into a list, and then link the items together by creating a story about them. You can exaggerate the story to make it more memorable. A memory board is a kind of mnemonic device that is kind of like a memory palace on a board.

You can make them with various materials like wood, beads, and shells. Each item on the board can represent a location in the memory space, and you can mentally walk through the memory space just like with a mind palace to recall the information. A great way to learn about memory boards is to read the book Memory Craft by Lynne Kelly.

The photo below shows a lukasa — a type of memory board used by the Luba people in Central Africa. To create an acronym take the first letter of each thing you want to memorize, and combine the letters together into a word.

Combining the first letters from each color into a word gives you the made-up name: Roy G. An acrostic mnemonic is a phrase or poem that represents the facts you want to remember. Acrostics are commonly used by medical students, for example to create mnemonics for tarsal bones.

A number rhyme system involves finding a word that rhymes with each number usually from 0 to 9. We already saw a quick example of it in the peg list section above.

Because pictures are much easier to remember than numbers, you can chain those pictures together with the story method to remember the digits.

If you want to remember the number , you could convert the digits into their rhyming pictures like this:. Then create a story story method to keep them in order: a giant DOOR falls on a TREE , knocking it onto a GUN , which fires at another DOOR , destroying it.

This only works for short numbers, but the technique is easy to use. If you want to memorize longer numbers, keep reading to learn more about advanced number memorization systems.

A number shape system is similar to a number rhyme system, but instead of creating mnemonic images based on rhymes, you create them by finding pictures that look like the digits.

Once you have pictures for each digit, you can use them as a peg list or as a way to remember numbers in the same was as with the number rhyme system. You can take number shapes to the next level by using the Shaper System.

In the Shaper System, you convert every 2-digit number into a picture that looks like the number. The pictures make it easier to remember the numbers, especially if you place the pictures into a mind palace. Spaced repetition is a simple technique that you can use to remember things better. The increasing intervals will help you maintain the information in your memory.

You can experiment with intervals to see what kind of spacing works best for you. We also offer memory palace software that automatically schedules the spaced repetition for you.

Learn how to set good goals, avoid common pitfalls, and share them out company-wide. Do you have a knack for memorizing lyrics or advanced fluency with words? Similar to chunking, spelling mnemonics are great tools to help you remember lists or groups.

Have you heard of SMART goals? The acronym makes it much easier to remember what the steps are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based , right?

The idea is very similar but instead of using the first letter of every word, you create a little poem, like this:. You can also create alliterations to retain information. This is especially helpful when you struggle to remember names. Try it out! You turn up the volume and sing along, remembering every single word.

If this happens to you on occasion, your long-term memory stores music very well! You can use the power of lyrics and melodies to your advantage when memorizing information.

Make up a catchy jingle or song in your head and turn boring or complicated things into fun tunes. Rhyming may just be one of the easiest memorization techniques—think about nursery rhymes! Much like the name suggests, this technique allows you to build on facts you already know.

It uses associations and connections to broaden your expertise and knowledge on a topic. The key to this technique is to not just memorize facts but to learn them and connect them to your web of logic.

Repeating something over and over again also called rote learning is not just tedious but also ineffective. You need to allow your brain to encode and store the information which takes time. Let some time pass after the webinar and work on other tasks before you return to your notes and read them again.

This is likely true if you often think in mental images or pictures and have a great imagination. So here are some memorization techniques that use visualization to retain information.

This technique is great if you have a creative mind and need to remember a long list of items. The beauty of it?