Source: blog.oxforddictionaries.com
I have not identified myself as a person who remembers things that I am supposed to recall later, but I do not want to stay with that type of identity for the rest of my life. Thankfully, I have stumbled upon two interviews from Grandmasters of Memory that do not claim to have any special inborn skills of memorization, but rather have been training and getting very good at it. What you are about to read is an article with the tips that they recommend to other people that can profoundly improve your ability to remember things.
Edward Cooke is a Grandmaster of Memory. In 2010 he was interviewed by a journalist called Joshua Foer, who later became his student and for less than a year of training, he became the very next American Memory Champion in 2011, from novice to world-class.
Nelson Dellis is another Grandmaster of Memory that has won the US Memory Champion 4 times. He was originally inspired to improve his memory after seeing the decline of his grandmother’s memory due to Alzheimer’s disease. He then entered his first memory competition in 2009 and the rest is history.
Source: news.kgnu.org
They both seem to be world-class performers with special genes, but they do not think they are more biologically capable than a normal person and actually believe that almost everybody can be really good at remembering things with the right set of techniques and a bit of practice. Edward was invited in Tim Ferriss podcast were he gave a lengthy interview and revealed some of his techniques among other things, and Nelson was recently interviewed and featured in Learning how to learn course.
It might look a bit of coincidence that both of them held separated interviews and gave almost the same advice on how to remember more, which you can read about below.
1. Use image associations that are meaningful to you
When you are trying to remember something that seems hard to stick to your memory, try to associate that thing with a mental picture that is interesting or that has a personal meaning to you. That visualization will help you recall that thing easier, because you have a stronger connection to it and you are more likely to recall it because of that connection.
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com
Let’s take the example of remembering somebody’s name that you do not meet frequently and suppose that he is called Berthold. A good suggestion of remembering his name would be to find someone that you already know that has the same name, be it a friend, a celebrity, a fiction character, but that is already part of your memory. As a result of this, you may find it much easier to recall his name and address to him by it the next time you meet him.
Maybe you may find it hard to learn a certain concept in economics or psychology, or what a function is in a programming language. You might connect the function that has parameters with a sharpener that takes in a dull pencil and a sharp pencil comes out, or you might connect it with the process of working: you put in the time and effort and get a payment, a sense of value and contribution as a result.
Another alternative might be trying to remember a lesson that you are currently reading. You might extract the keywords or key phrases from it and then associate them with some clear pictures.
2. Associate that image with a certain place
The first technique might be helpful, but if you want to better reinforce certain things to your memory, you might attach to the first technique this one that can increase the chances of remembering. After you have come up with a vivid and interesting picture using the first technique, you might also want to place that certain picture in a place which you are familiar with. You might put those picture in your house, your street or anywhere else that is already known to your brain and that does not require much mental effort to recall it.
Let’s suppose that you are trying to remember a shopping list that you are about to buy, such as two bottles of milk, a kilogram of apples, fifteen eggs and three kilograms of potatoes. A possibility of remembering these items without writing them down is associating them to different objects into your bedroom. For example you might visualize two broken bottles of milk that is spread around the floor, and the apples staying next to your iPhone in the table, and the splashed eggs that have been filling up the window and a few potatoes that are jumping in your bed. It might sound a bit funny, but that is even better because you do not have only a mental picture but your emotions are also attached to that picture.
Another example might be remembering a difficult formula that does not make sense to you in the first sight. Let’s say that you are trying to remember the formula first law of Newton. It might be better if you try to distinguish the variables into separated objects and associate to them some certain meaning that does make sense to you. You might think of 
It might not be a proper explanation for an academic class, but if it helps you remember and better understand the formula, why not using it?
These were two tips, illustrated with two examples that might not be the best ones, but they are intended to you give an initial idea and a better understanding of these powerful techniques that can really help you. Things are usually not as difficult as we may perceive in the first sight. The question that remains is: How much time are we really wasting?
