Using Mnemonic Devices to Improve Memory
by Michael Bluejay | michaelbluejay.com

There are tricks you can use to help memorize lists and numbers, called "mnemonic devices". For example, let's say you're trying to remember the spices that go into a stew recipe, so you don't have to get out your recipe book every time you make it. The spices are Thyme, Parsley, Sage, Arrowroot, Salt, and Pepper. You can make up an easy-to-remember sentence with the first letter of each word becoming the first letter of the words in your sentence. For example, the first letters in our spices list are T, P, S, A, S, P, so your handy sentence could be, "Thirteen Palestinians silently admired Satan's panties."

 

You can use other mnemonic devices to memorize telephone numbers. Let's say you want to memorize the number of your probation officer, 302-5526. The first three numbers (302) happen to be area code for Delaware, the first state, so you'll remember that. The next two numbers (55) are the old maximum speed limit. The next two numbers (26) are the number of letters in the alphabet. So you could remember the number by thinking "Delaware highway alphabet."

 

There are other ways to remember phone numbers. For example, say the number is 428-1475. You start off by memorizing the 4, which is pretty easy. Then you multiply that by the second number (2) to get the third number (8). To get the next two numbers (14), just add the first three numbers together (4+2+8=14). To get the next number (7), simply add all the previous numbers together (4+2+8+1+4=19), add the first two numbers again (19+4+2=25), subtract the second two numbers (25-8-1=16), and add the digits of the result together (1+6=7). From there, getting the final number (5) is child's play. Add all the previous numbers together (4+2+8+1+4+7=26), double it, (26x2=52), subtract the number of numbers before the hyphen (52-3=49), take the square root (Ã of 49 = 7), add the total of the previous numbers again (7+26=33), multiply that by one of its own digits (33x3=99), add 1 for the hell of it (99+1=100), then consider that 5, the last number, goes into 100 an even number of times, therefore the last number must be 5. Using mnemonic devices like this to help you is certainly a lot easier than trying to remember the phone number by itself.

 

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