In what year did Alexander Fleming discover penicillin? Did you remember?
The average person has the ability to remember seven different items at one time. This is one of the reasons why phone numbers are seven digits long.
Now there are tricks that allow you to remember more numbers. For example, how many of you group numbers together (instead of: 3,6,9,7,7,5,4
Gouverneur Morris - courtesy of Columbia University
you instead remember; 36, 97, 75, 4 or 36, 9, 77, 54)? Two digit numbers are fairly easy to remember and by grouping them there are now only four items to remember.
Now I would like to show you something. Think of a place that is very familiar to you. I would suggest your dorm room but it is probably too small. How about your home? You know where every corner, every chair and every counter top is without even thinking about it. Right?
Now the exercise: I am going to use my house – you use yours. Envision walking through the front door and into a party.
I walk in and there in the entryway is Marilyn Monroe flirting with Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
I turn into the living room and sitting on the couch is Bill Gates talking with Donald Trump. Sitting on the other end of the couch is Byounce speaking with George Washington, who is standing.
Sitting in the two chairs, opposite the couch, is Queen Elizabeth and Richard Nixon. Speaking to them, kneeling on the floor between the chairs, is Nancy Pelosi.
As I make my way past Nancy I run into Gouverneur Morris and Jack Black. As they stand in the doorway into the dining room they are having a heated discussion about virtues of tin cans being dragged behind wedding party cars.
Then in the kitchen…and then in the living room…. I am stopping here because I can’t think of any more people that both of us know. (Gouverneur…like that?).
When I did this, before writing this post, I listed 25 people with some of their discussions. I took a break and when I came back, I remembered 24 of them. Not too bad. By using a location very familiar to you it allows for two things that your mind does not need to do. First, your brain does not need to work at remembering the background view, but more importantly, it gives context to the items that you are trying to remember.
This exercise will work for remembering anything. It will work for numbers, the names of the bones in your wrist or the list of bars you went to last Friday (in order) (assuming you can remember any after the first 22). Try it (the exercise, not remembering number 23).
Now I told you that we were working on improving your focus not your memory. Well, this is actually improving both. Focus is the ability to concentrate on a subject without distraction. By forcing yourself to work through this exercise is training your brain to concentrate. The Zen Master in Us does the same focus training without needing to remember stuff. You might like it better.
