Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 5: Simply stamp
• Method 2 of 5: Divide into pieces
• Method 3 of 5: Combine the different parts into a sentence or idea
• Method 4 of 5: Mnemonics
• Method 5 of 5: Remember things by making connections

It is very useful if you want to memorize things quickly. It is useful for school or at work, and it is also just fun for yourself to keep getting better at it. By training your memory, your brain stays in shape and being able to quickly learn something by heart is an art that can be of great use in your life. The art of memory training is very old and over the years people have come up with a lot of clever ways to save things faster in their memory. By combining those classic ways with our modern psychology, we can roughly distinguish five ways that you can use when you need or want to memorize something quickly.

To step

Method 1 of 5: Simply stamp

1. Suppose you want to memorize a number of US states from west to east and their capitals. Below we explain how you can more easily remember those states and their capitals:
   • Stamping is nothing more than repeating what you want to memorize over and over again until you have stored it in your memory. This form of repetition ensures that connections and patterns are formed in your brain, making it easier to recite what you have learned by heart. As neurologists say, "Facts that are stored together also come out together".
2. Stamping to remember works better for some things than others. Memorizing things through repetition encourages your brain to make the necessary connections to say or do what you have learned.
   • Stamping works very well with manual operations, such as starting a car or ironing a shirt, and with short lists with several loose points, such as a shopping list.
   • Stamping doesn't work very well for memorizing a lot of different things like all the elements of the periodic table from left to right, or the parts of a car, or for memorizing a complex idea that is stands itself, as for example the concept of dialectical materialism.
3. List the things you want to memorize. Make sure everything you need to know is in the order you need to know the different parts.
4. First, practice reading what you need to memorize. To memorize the states, this means that you read and reread the list of states and capitals over and over again.
5. Now without looking at the list, try to memorize what you want to learn. Cover all or part of the list with a piece of paper and say aloud to yourself what is under the paper. Now always cover the previous table. Remember what was in the last two openings?
   • You will probably make a lot of mistakes at first, but try not to get frustrated by them! Your brain still has to get used to the hard work. Go ahead and you will see that in a few minutes you can remember everything you have learned by heart.

Method 2 of 5: Divide into pieces

1. Imagine having to memorize the countries of the United Nations Security Council. In total, there are 10 countries that you can systematically organize in one way or another.
2. To begin with, you need to know the use of dividing it into pieces. Dividing it into pieces works well when you memorize things that are made up of smaller parts in a certain, logical way. In the example above we can, for example, divide the countries by continent; you could classify the elements of the periodic table by type; and if you have to memorize the parts of a car, you can for example divide them into sub-parts (inlet, engine, exhaust pipe, crankshaft).
   • If you've ever memorized a phone number, you've probably noticed how a phone number is structured when you write it - a phone number is constructed in such a way that you can easily break it up and remember it. For example, the telephone number of the House of Representatives is (070) 318-2211. This number is easier to remember in the form of three separate numbers - 070, 318 and 3311 - than as one, long number, 0703182211.
   • The technique of splitting into smaller pieces does not work very well with large, complicated concepts and ideas that you cannot easily break down. For example, it is not easy to think of what "memorizable" documents could be if you want to remember the concept of civil rights, what is the definition of citizenship, or if you want to memorize a list of telephone numbers that are very similar. .
3. Break what you need to learn into smaller, easy-to-remember pieces. Since you have to convert large parts into smaller ones, this strategy works best with things that you can indeed split into smaller pieces in some logical way.
4. Then you can practice by reciting the smaller parts (the pieces) by heart. To memorize the countries of the United Nations Security Council, you can, for example, cancel the countries of one continent from your previously created list:
5. Then you can try to combine the pieces. Memorizing each individual piece is just the beginning. In order to memorize something completely with this method, you will of course have to memorize the entire list. Cover the list you memorized earlier and see how many of it you memorized.

Method 3 of 5: Combine the different parts into a sentence or idea

1. Suppose you have to memorize a shopping list. On the list are all different things that have nothing to do with each other.
2. First you need to understand the use of combining or “stringing together” a number of different ideas. If you have to memorize a lot of different things, this method is not very useful. The combining method therefore works best for memorizing shorter lists or for things that are difficult to remember.
   • Combining works very well to remember a list that is not too long and that contains a number of random things that at first sight have nothing to do with each other (such as the list: tree, bird, piano, bottle). You cannot apply the technique of dividing into pieces very well on this, because there are no groups or categories on the list on the basis of which you could make a division.
3. Create a sentence or an image with all the parts you need to memorize. This is the nicest part of this method: the crazier or more absurd your sentence or image is, the easier it will be for you to remember it, like this sentence:
   • Peanut butter and coffee bean bread packed in an Ethernet cable with a screwdriver inserted through it.
4. Repeat the phrase or image you created, memorize it, and then try to memorize the various parts of your learned phrase or image. The idea is that you use your phrase or image as a sort of "key" that will help the words you have memorized more easily come to mind.
   • Peanut butter and coffee bean bread packed in an ethernet cable with a screwdriver inserted through it = peanut butter, coffee beans, bread, ethernet cable, screwdriver.

Method 4 of 5: Mnemonics

1. Suppose you need to memorize basic trigonometry formulas. For this you have to remember, for example, how to calculate the sine, the cosine and the tangent of the base angle of a right triangle.
2. What are mnemonics anyway? A "mnemonic" is a tool that you've probably used a lot since grade school. If you have ever used the words kofschip or breeding sheep in Dutch to determine whether you write a past participle with a -d or with an -t, or if you use certain rhymes to remember the German cases, then you have mnemonics used.
3. When are mnemonics useful? If you have to memorize more things than can fit in a short sentence, you shouldn't use mnemonics. Mnemonics are therefore, just like the technique of combining individual elements, especially suitable for memorizing a relatively short list of things that fit into a certain system. Mnemonics are especially useful for memorizing a list of words, for example, but they don't work very well when you need to remember a long list of things that don't really have a system in them, such as a list of phone numbers, or the digits of the number pi.
4. You can also create a schematic mnemonic. A schematic mnemonic is little more than a "key phrase" that will help you memorize what you need to memorize. For our example, we can come up with a word that makes no sense but that is easy to remember.
5. Practice memorizing your key phrase and the parts of that phrase that you need to memorize. The sentence is the "key" to your memory. Then cover up the list you just memorized. Do you remember what the sentence stands for?

Method 5 of 5: Remember things by making connections

1. Suppose for some reason you have to memorize the parts of the slide of a 1911 handgun. The list of things to learn, from the front of the gun to the back, would say something like this:
   • carriage
   • sleeve
   • walk
   • firing pin
   • tractor
   • hammer
2. How does the associative method, or making connections, work? The human brain is very good at making connections. In fact, this talent is so deeply embedded in us that we can use this skill to memorize things. For this type of memory training you create in your mind a journey or walk that you associate with the things you need to remember. By taking that journey or walk in your mind, your memories come up.
3. When does making connections work? The associative method, or making connections, is a very effective method, especially if you have a rich imagination. People have used different variations of the associative method over the years (for example, walking through an imaginary house, looking around an imaginary room, or flipping through a book that you envision in your mind) to learn things that need to be memorized. to be organized in a logical way.
   • The associative method works best for memorizing things that you can easily split up and that you can organize in a certain spatial way, such as the stanzas of a poem, the parts of a machine or the procedure to be done. for boiling an egg.
   • Something that you cannot split up in one way or another is less suitable for this method, such as the idea on which abstract expressionism is based, the course of the Cold War or remembering how you ask someone out.
4. Imagine a second set of things you can easily remember and relate them to things you need to memorize. Then you use that second set of things you have memorized as the "key" to what you need to memorize.
   • Creating your second list to serve as a "key" is therefore more difficult when you have to memorize a random list of individual items that don't fit together in any way. For example, for the example above, we are going to imagine that we are a very small man walking through the carriage of a 1911 pistol.
5. Practice the walk or voyage of discovery through your mind map in your mind and try to retrieve what you need to remember. You can make it as fun and interesting or as simple and easy to remember as you want. For example, in our example, while walking through the barrel of the 1911 pistol, the male might say:
   • ’First we pass the sleeve and there I see the barrel sticking out. Behind the barrel and the latch, as we walk on, I see a small hole through which I can see that firing pin, and to the left of it is the trigger on the side of the sleeve; if I walk all the way back, I get to the hammer.’
6. Practice the walk and the voyage of discovery through your mind map in your mind. Concentrate on this a few times a day and walk back in your mind the same way back to front. The more you practice, the easier it will be for you to remember the route and the different parts.
7. The next step is to recite what you have memorized using your thought card. During this visualization exercise, you will see the different parts in your mind in front of you and your brain is getting better and better at forming your "key visualization," but that is not enough. You also need to memorize each part of your key separately. Try to work "from back to front". Start by reciting the list of items and then see if you remember what your original thought card or "key" looked like.