Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0269: Reprise: Does my number-memorizing technique make sense?

Episode Date: March 19, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how number-memorizing techniques make sense, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Hey, this is Timothy, and welcome to episode 269 of Master of Memory. Today we're doing a reprise episode. When we release this episode, it's going to be during my sabbatical for some extended overseas travel. So we're representing an old Master of Memory episode that I think is worth a refresher, but also with some new commentary from me based on my more experienced perspective. With the particular episode we're re-releasing today, episode 28, I'm actually going to modify significantly my recommendations.

So the listener described a number memorization system whereby he's basically just memorizing the visual or tactile kind of, you know, kinesthetic pattern of typing out a number on a numpad. And then I went and described a much more complex system of creating some narrative around it. Now, while the narrative idea that I described in this episode could work, and it could work particularly for long numbers that you're willing to spend a lot of time working on, I would actually modify this and say that probably the way that the listener was originally doing it was better, but perhaps with just a little bit more of a visual idea, like, you know, the idea of instead of just being the moving around on a numpad,

instead of turning that into some sort of narrative, you could still enhance it by just doing something simple, like drawing a shape around the numbers or something simple of that nature. So leveraging the advantages of the way that this listener is, you know, memorizing numbers based on the numpad, but then not overcomplicating it, but enhancing it in some visual way. I think mnemonists very often get a bad rap for making things more complicated than they originally were, rather than less complicated. And I try to be different from most mnemonists in that I emphasize exclusivity more than most other people. But at any rate, here's how the episode was originally delivered a year ago in April.

Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Trevor had a question on Facebook about memorizing numbers. Trevor says, for some reason, I have the innate ability to memorize numbers. For example, I've memorized debit card, credit card, driver's license, social security number, and phone numbers. The trick I use is to visualize the patterns of the numbers like I'm typing them on a num key pad on a keyboard. So, for example, if I'm memorizing a new credit card number and the first four digits are 5228, then I visually see a straight line pattern on the middle of the keypad, starting with the middle 5 and then moving down to the 2 and then back up to the 8.

I don't have a clue why this works for me, but it does. Well, Trevor, actually that makes a ton of sense, and I'll show you why. Remember that the mind likes to remember things that are memorable. Now, normally numbers are very abstract ideas. The concept of 5228 means practically nothing to most of our brains, except that it's a pretty big number, somewhere in the middle of 1 to 1,000. But what you're doing is you're associating them with something else, something much more memorable. In particular, you're translating your number into physical space

with an action happening in space. A movement around a nun pad is much more memorable than the numbers just by themselves. So I'm going to list a few things that the human mind typically finds memorable. First images, and then actions, memorable characters, spatial environments, and funny stories. When you combine more than one of those together, you get something particularly memorable. So here are some more suggestions for making numbers memorable in a similar way. That action thing may work for you, but what if you went a step further and imagined something

even more memorable about the numpad? You might be able to memorize numbers faster. Suppose that the top row of keys, the 7, 8, and 9, were three red-hot rocks, and the bottom row were underwater at the bottom of a river. And then imagine that instead of pressing those keys, you're watching a little gray mouse run around them, from the hot area at the top, down to the solid, comfortable middle row, to the water at the bottom.

For any number, you could imagine a story of the mouse running around the numpad. For example 85620 would be a mouse starting on the hot rock at the middle of the top and then quickly going to the comfortable middle and then starting to explore this solid ground by going to the right and then jumping diagonally into the water on the two and then falling off a waterfall to the zero. Okay, maybe that was a little too easy. How about 0266736? The mouse starts at the bottom of the waterfall, jumps up onto the two in the middle of the pond, jumps out of the water diagonally to the right onto the six, and then hops in place one time to repeat the six, and then jumps as far as possible away from where he is,

maybe because he left a puddle on the shore, but then he lands on a red-hot rock at the top left of the numpad. So then he jumps even further to the extreme opposite place, landing in water at the bottom right. And then, exhausted, he climbs back onto the closest shore, which is the 6, and he's already gotten that wet and left a puddle, but he's too exhausted to move, and so he just lays panting in that puddle. So you have 0, 2, 6, 6 again when he jumps, 7, 3, which is the extreme opposite, and then 6 when he climbs back onto shore. 0, 2, 6, 6, 7, 3, 6. Of course, this is most useful for people like Trevor who are already pretty familiar with the layout of the numpad. Some of you may not have had an easy time visualizing that story.

But there are lots of other techniques for making numbers extremely memorable, such as turning numbers into letters and creating words, which are much more memorable than numbers, or using the technique that I use that automatically turns numbers into memorable stories pretty much as soon as I read or hear the numbers. I can memorize any 30-digit number in just 60 seconds, which is your inspiration for today. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am. I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States in May. Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at

masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com.