What’s your memory like?  Do you often say to yourself, ‘I never remember anything’? or ‘I have a really poor memory’?

I’ve always been interested in how the mind works and memory in particular fascinates me.  Why is it that you can remember the tiniest of details sometimes, yet other times it’s as if you’ve had a memory wipe like they have in a sci-fi movie?

There are many facets to memory and I’m absolutely no expert in this field but I’d like to share a few things that have worked for me over the past…

1. Exercise your brain - We exercise our bodies but forget our brains, it’s important to do both
2. Pay attention – When you’re doing something, learning, speaking with someone give it your full attention.  If you aren’t fully focused then you may not store the information correctly
3. Routine – Do you forget to brush your teeth?  Probably not because you’ve set a routine.   Try setting routines for things you need to remember.  Use reminders, alarms and planners to help you
4. Use visualisation and association - This one is fun!  By visualising a crazy story line and associating it with certain location points you can remember heaps of information.  I’ve read some books on it over the past, but more recently I had a book recommendation, called ‘The Memory Palace‘.  In this book you can learn all 37 Shakespeare plays in chronological order both forwards and backwards within a few minutes.  Well that sounded like a challenge so I thought I’d give it a go.  It took 30 minutes but I can now recall all 37 plays.  Now, interestingly going back to my point about about paying attention, when recalling the information where I was distracted when I was reading I get it a bit muddled so focus, focus, focus!
5. Learn it right first time – That way each time you do it right you will be making more progress
6. Sort out your stress    – when you’re stressful or tired memory can be impacted
7. Test yourself – Remember the Krypton Factor? (sorry if you’re too young to remember this one!) – Put your ‘K’ t-shirt on and practice your observation skills.  Watch the news and read articles/magazines.  When you’re finished test yourself on some of the smaller detail that you remembered.  Give your brain a workout
8. Language – this one for me is a biggie.  If I forget just ONE thing I will then tell myself ‘I have a bad memory’ or ‘I never remember anything’ and that just makes me worse.  Now I replace it with ‘I have a great memory’ or ‘My memory is improving’.  This stops the berating and enables me to use my brain for more interesting facts and information that I am learning!
9. Mind Mapping – A FABULOUS tool for helping you to store information.  In fact I absolutely know that it’s how I passed my HR qualifications many years ago.  When I work on any project, including my blog posts (see my one for this post below) I draw/create a mind map.  It helps you organise your thoughts and remember information.  Often I use this app to create one.  You can learn more about Mind Mapping here.

Memory improvement takes time, but it’s really worth the effort.  Use a combination of methods, one method may work better in some scenarios for you than others.

Like this post?  Feel free to share using the buttons below.  I’d love to hear all about your hints and tips for improving memory.  What good books have you read about it?  Let’s get a conversation started in the comments section below.