Mnemonics: The Link Memory Method
One of the biggest challenges for people everywhere, no matter their age or occupation, is remembering lists of important information. We’ve all tried techniques such as rote memorization, repetition, and even fooling ourselves into thinking that we will just remember everything after simply running through the list in our mind. The fact is that unless you have a truly gifted memory, most of these attempts are sure to fail. One of the more effective ways to remember such information is by using some type of memory mnemonics. There are many, many different systems out there that improve memory of this type of information, but one stands out as being easy to use, and quick to learn.
The technique that I’m referring to is known as the link method. The goal of this method is to use vivid visualizations and mental associations between words in your list, effectively linking them together, one after the other. It’s more easily explained with an example. Let’s say you want to remember the following list of unrelated words.
Baby, Tree, Airplane, Spaghetti, River
Start by creating a crazy picture in your mind linking the first two words in the list, baby and tree. Imagine a little BABY climbing to the top of a TREE. You have just memorized the first two words in the list, now you have to “link” to the next word. Imagine a Christmas TREE with nothing but little AIRPLANE ornaments all over it. You decide that a nice addition to those AIRPLANEs would be some garland, but all you have that would work is SPAGHETTI, so you decorate your tree with some of it. Now your spouse comes home to see your creation and is aghast at how ugly the family Christmas tree is, so she takes the whole thing out and tosses it into the RIVER.
As you can see, these silly images leave quite an impression on you and will more than likely stick in your memory better that just trying to memorize the list. This example of memory mnemonics is actually a combination of two, the link and story methods, but I find it is even more effective to add a little story to your word-picture associations.
This may sound like it is a lot of work, or maybe a little silly, but I guarantee the next time you need to remember any type of list and you give this memory mnemonics technique a try, you will find that you will quite easily remember the information. Of all of the other tips that improve memory that I’ve tried, this is one of my favorites, and I use it all the time. I’m sure you’ll have the same great results as me!
