Title: How to Remember Anything

Author: Mark Channon

Year Published 2013

Kind of Book: How to/Learning/Memory

Personal Rating: 6/10

My Impressions: This was a great book for learning mnemonic techniques to use across a vast field of applications. Though some of the mnemonic systems he recommended weren't the ones that worked best for me it was still useful to see how he broke down how you could use mnemonics and creative visualization in just about every situation. My only critique of the book is that the author tried to do a bit too much. The last few chapters were about goal setting and advancing in your career and seemed a bit out of place. Still a very worthwhile book for the budding mnemonists out there.

Date Read Dec 2020

Practical Takeaways

  • Use everything you learn in some way

  • Do some deep breathing to get into a relaxed state before doing memory training

  • Be selective about the information you encode into a memory palace. Make sure it is valuable to you in some way.

  • Only use creative visualization when normal retention/memorization isn't working. Ask "what am I having trouble remembering that creative memorization could help with?"

  • Creating Markers

    • First, see if there is an image that naturally appears when you think of the information you're trying to memorize (eg. Uranus=Brown 42)

    • If you don't have a natural association to the thing you are trying to create a marker for, create an image that sounds similar to all or part of the keyword

    • Make your markers funny

    • Scary

    • Sexy

    • Vivid: imagine you have a dial on your wrist and as you turn it the vividness of your marker gets dialed up in terms of smell, taste, feel, colors, specifics

    • Only encode the minimal number of images necessary for your marker to trigger the things you are memorizing

    • Close your eyes and say the word you're trying to word out loud (3-5times) while simultaneously seeing the image you've created in your mind's eye

  • Memory Palaces

    • Choose the start and end point of your memory palace before you start putting markers in

    • Choose the stations for your markers in your memory palace before you start putting markers in so that you have don't run out (eg. I know I will need 48 stations)

    • Make sure each marker is attached to a specific point or thing at each station (eg. On the toilet as opposed to in the bathroom)

    • Practice going through your memory palace forwards and backwards

Reading

  • Before reading a book write a sentence or two about why you're reading it

  • After you read a book, put what you have learned into action immediately (eg. Write an essay)

Remembering names

  • Remember where you met the person

  • Remember why you met the person

  • When you hear their name, repeat it back to them out loud

  • (to remember faces) become aware of their most prominent feature and mentally exaggerate it

  • Use the person's face as the peg that you will connect their name mnemonic to

Remembering where you put stuff down

  • Whenever you set something down you don't want to forget

  1. Say "down" in a weird voice (the same way every time you do it)

  2. Create a physical action to do at the same time (touch the object with two fingers

  3. Imagine a green alien hand coming up from the place you are setting it down and grabbing it

  4. Fire all three things at the same time

(condition yourself to do this 4xs a day for the next 7 days)