How To Improve Your Memory Skills

Don’t underestimate your ability to bring forth awareness and events of the past. Remembering determines your ability to learn as well as your ability to take what you learned and put it into action.

If you cannot retain information well, chances are, that you don’t perform well academically. This lowers your chances of ultimately getting hired and if you find a job, you may become a liability to your employer.

If you keep forgetting things, you will have a harder time following instructions and your productivity levels may be lower than what your employer expects of you.

Therefore, it pays to learn how to remember things both in the short-term and long-term.

Types of Memory

Memory is the brain faculty that deals with encoding, storing, and retrieving information. The encoding process usually takes place through sight (visual systems), sound (auditory systems), or meaning (semantics).

Two main types of memory exist. These are:

1. Short-term memory. Short-term memory refers to your mind’s ability to temporarily store a limited amount of information. It allows you to hold about five to nine pieces of information at any given time for a period of about two to seven seconds.

   The main function of short-term memory is to hold information for a while until you can store it in your brain permanently. But if you don’t take steps to record or memorize this information, it is quickly lost.

   An example of how short-term memory works is when someone gives you their phone number. If you don’t repeat it until it sticks or writes it down somewhere, you will realize you have forgotten it after a short while.

   Therefore, short-term memory is vulnerable to interference. Time and distractions will affect your ability to remember the information.

   One important aspect of short-term memory is known as working memory. This refers to space within your mind that can hold information temporarily so that you can manipulate it for a purpose.

   Working memory is meant to help you reason, make decisions, and perform relevant tasks to completion. Its capacity influences your mental performance which tends to decline with age.

2. Long-term memory. Long-term memory refers to your mind’s ability to hold a lot of information for a prolonged period. This is the type of memory that enables you to recall information from your childhood.

   So, once your short-term memories are converted to long-term ones, it’s difficult to completely forget them. Your mind can recall the information when necessary. But the ease of recall depends on how important the information you’re trying to remember is.

   For example, your wedding day is something that you could probably recall ten years down the line. A wedding day is usually one of the most important events of someone’s life. People tend to have strong, positive emotions associated with such events. So, it becomes important thus making it easy to remember.

Strategies for Improving Your Memory Skills

Memorization skills help you to improve memory and make it easier to retain information. You can use a variety of strategies to improve your memory. The following are some of the ways to remember information:

• Note-taking. Note-taking makes it easier to remember information. You will need to summarize, paraphrase, and organize information when taking notes. This process of manipulating, transforming, and storing information will engage your brain significantly.

  When you write-down things based on your understanding of them, you pay closer attention to processing the information.

  Taking notes frees up your short-term memory so that you can use it to hold other forms of information. Later on, you can refer to your notes, and commit them to long-term memory using other techniques.

  Note-taking improves your ability to retain and recall information over the long term. Thus, it improves learning and memory.

• Method of loci. The method of loci refers to a memorization skill that requires you to put each piece of information that you need to remember or that you are familiar with in your mind as if it were kept in a building.

  Then you would mentally walk through that building and retrieve the information you need in the right order. It relies on spatial memory to process and recall information.

  Loci is a Latin word for “places.” The method of loci is also known as the Cicero method or the Memory Palace technique.

  The Cicero technique is named so after Cicero, one of ancient Rome’s greatest orators.

  According to a legend shared by Cicero, a Greek poet known as Simonides of Ceos was the only known survivor of an accident that took place during a banquet he attended. He had been called outside when the accident took place.

  Because most corpses were crushed to death, it was impossible to recognize them. So, when questioned, Simonides helped to identify bodies by consulting his visual memory concerning everyone’s seating position. Thus the method of loci was born.

  Orators like Cicero were inspired to use this technique to recall each point they intended to make in their speeches in its correct order without having to use any notes.

  You can use the method of loci to remember information such as who attended your last meeting, the qualities and skills to highlight in an interview, the tasks in your event planning to-do list, and the stuff in your shopping list that you need to buy.

  The more visually stimulating your ideas are, the more likely you are to remember them.

• Acronyms. Acronyms are words or names created usually from the first letter of a longer word or phrase. They make you remember information that tends to appear in list form. They are a form of mnemonic device that is meant to help you remember things.

  A well-known example of an acronym is SMART, which is a word used to guide people when setting goals and objectives. SMART goals are objectives that include being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

  BODMAS is also a popular acronym that you can use to remember the order of mathematical operations. It stands for Brackets (powers and square roots), Orders, Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction.

  Another way to remember this order of mathematical operations is by using an acronym such as PEMDAS, which stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction.

  You can use PEMDAS or BODMAS to determine which procedures you can do first as you move from left to right.

• Songs. Musical mnemonics are excellent ways to improve your memory when concerning verbal information.

  You can group information in meaningful chunks then use a song to remember the information. It could be a song that is unique to the information you want to remember, but it could also be a familiar song meant to memorize new information.

  The “ABC” song is one of the most popular musical mnemonics. Parents and teachers use it to teach children the letters of the alphabet in their correct order.

  Another example of a musical mnemonic is the song that children use to learn different body parts: “head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes; head and shoulders, knees and toes; eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.”

• Acrostics. Acrostics involve the use of catchy phrases or poems to remember a list of items in their exact order. The first letter of each word will represent another word.

  This particular mnemonic device improves your ability to process and recall information. You can also use it to remember difficult words that you have trouble spelling.

  For example, you could use Richard Of York Gravely Battled In Vain to remember the seven colors of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet).

• Rhymes. Rhymes are a mnemonic device that uses similar sounding words or word endings to improve the ability to retain information. The repetition of sounds is responsible for the acoustic encoding of information.

  The rhyme on the months of the years and the days each contains is one of the most popular mnemonic devices of this nature. It goes like this:

  “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November;

  All the rest have 31,

  Save February, with 28 days clear,

  And 29 each leap year.”

• Chunking. Chunking refers to the grouping of large amounts of information into smaller and more organized batches or chunks of information so that it’s easier to remember.

  Most people tend to memorize telephone numbers this way. For example, the telephone number 1800234567 can be saved up in your head as 1-800-234-567.

  Since your short-term memory has a limited capacity, saving up a large amount of data in a smaller memory compartment makes it easy to store the entire amount of information that you should remember.

• Image-name association. Image-name association requires you to remember information by associating it with a related image in your mind. It works better than just reading text hoping you will not forget the information.

  You should use positive, vivid, and interesting images when making associations with the text you need to remember. You can also involve all your other senses as well as humor when making the name-image associations.

  For example, if you work with two people named Carl Smith and Carl White, it could be difficult to match the names to the people. But suppose Carl Smith is bald and Carl White is hairy.

  You could envision Carl Smith as a dancing egg perhaps. And Carl White could become a moving bush. So, in your mind, you will recall Carl Smith as the dancing egg to imply he is the bald one, while Carl White could be the moving bush to remind you he is the hairy one.

• Drawing. Drawing out information can make it easier to remember. We say “a picture is worth a thousand words,” for a reason.

  People find it easier to remember pictures more than words. That’s because drawing forces you to process that information visually and based on how you understand it. Your mind assigns meanings to your drawings, which makes them easier to recall.

  You could use mind maps, diagrams, charts, flow charts, or storyboards to improve your ability to visualize, encode, and store information, depending on your preference and the kind of information you are trying to memorize.

• Rehearsing. Rehearsing involves the processing, storage, and recalling of information through assigning its meanings and performing repetitive actions. That is why people often talk about becoming better and more skilled through practice.

  The first stage is reciting, which involves repeating words out aloud. Reciting words help to ensure they get stored in the long-term memory. It is the basis for memorizing multiplication tables.

  Effective rehearsal will also require you to understand the information you have and assign meaning to that information.

  Then based on your understanding of it, you will assign an appropriate action. The more you repeat this action, the more it sticks in your brain. And you can easily recall it when the necessity arises.

  Actors, musicians, and poets often rehearse so they remember what to do when performing for an audience.

  After prolonged practice, people who play musical instruments such as the piano can play them without looking because rehearsals have made them familiar with where they are located and what sounds they make.

• Spaced repetition. Spaced repetition is a memorization strategy that requires you to absorb information then continuously review it at spaced-out intervals over a long period. Spacing out the learning sessions enables you to store information in your long-term memory.

  Flashcards are a great tool for effectively improving your ability to remember information. You can create a physical deck of cards or use digital flashcards to review information periodically.

  Grammar, pronunciation, and spelling are often learned through spaced repetition. You can also learn a new language or academic content this way.

• The chaining method. The chaining method is meant to help you have a good memory by creating mental images of each piece of information such that one image gives clues to the next piece of information in the sequence. You should visually associate two pieces of information to ensure continuity.

  The first item on the list is then associated with a trigger that will get you started on recalling what you need to remember.

  The chaining method is also known as the linking method. You can use this storytelling to remember the entire sequence of information. It’s an excellent way to remember shopping lists, procedures with many steps, assembly instructions, a series of events, etc.

• The peg system. The peg system requires you to associate numbers with words and phrases to remember large lists. You can also form mental images of the items to make the words easier to remember. Also, think about finding a noun that rhymes with a selected number to improve recollection.

  The peg system provides you with a “peg” on which to hang a particular piece of information so that you can remember its position in the list.

  For example, if you wanted to remember gardening items you could memorize them this way: “1 Vine; 2 Gloves; 3 Flowers; 4 Shovels…”

• Brain games. Brain games are any games that stimulate your ability to reason. Some brain games can improve memory. These include crossword puzzles, Sudoku, chess, Scrabble, and bridge.

  You can also take advantage of online gaming platforms such as Lumosity to access a variety of brain games.

Final Thoughts

Cramming information can help you retain information for a time, but in the long term, you will forget it. Therefore, it will fail to be of use.

Take the time to implement effective memory training strategies to improve your ability to retain information. Then present yourself as an excellent learner with lots of skills to prove you are worth hiring. Your ability to memorize is an asset to any organization that values skilled employees.

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.