Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0436: The biggest thing that makes memorization stick for the long term

Episode Date: November 9, 2015

Chris has an easy time memorizing numbers for the short term (using Major System mnemonics), but these memories tend to fade after an hour or two. I diagnose this issue and talk about the biggest thing that makes memorization stick for the long term. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice […]

Master of Memory 436. 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. Chris wrote in an email, I'm able to memorize a telephone number using the major system, but then an hour later the memorization fades. I just didn't know if PAO created better pictures and a better story, which enhances the retrieval. So Chris, what's going on here is you're asking whether you should learn PAO in order to store things in better long-term storage, but I would argue that the difference between the major system and PAO, or whatever system you use

to memorize numbers, doesn't really have to do with long-term versus short-term storage. You can create very visual images using either technique. The benefits of PAO are actually just in the speed with which you can create those images in the first place and the efficiency with which you can store them because you have fewer images to store more information. So the real answer to your question here is not switching to PAO. It's actually something else. What you need to do to make the memorization stick is to think about your trigger and to think about how you're going to store this stuff long term. Someone tells you a telephone number and you're able to turn that into a few images, that's great. But the issue here is how do you retrieve those images and keep them from just blowing out the window of your car

and landing in a puddle somewhere and disappearing forever? And the answer to that is, let's say you're holding this image, you actually need to put it somewhere. And this is, it sounds a little bit weird, but this is really the physical world and the mental world. Our minds operate based on the way that they see the world around them. And so the best way to take a memory that you've turned into a physical object and store it long term is to put it in a location. If you can place your memory, if you can place the image of that telephone number that you've created in an actual location where you can retrieve it later, it's just like you've, you know, gotten some sort of possession or somebody's handed you a piece of paper,

and instead of looking at it and then dropping it, you actually put it in a particular pocket or something like that, so that the next time that you need it, you don't just go looking around for it, you actually know exactly which pocket to pull it from. That's the difference between short-term storage, where you're just holding something in your hands, and long-term storage, where you put something somewhere where you know you can retrieve it at another time just by going to that same place.

And so, of course, what I'm talking about here is using a memory palace. Now, there are really two options for storing such a number, depending on whether you're talking about middle-length storage, as in remembering that number for a few days and the next time you need it, or longer-term storage, which means that you can store it indefinitely and you never really want to forget it. You just want to keep it for, you know, indefinitely. So for middle-length storage, you might just choose a location based on what trigger you think will work best. If it's just a phone number that you're going to have to call later that day, you might think about where you'll be when you're going to be dialing that number and use that place where you're going to be as the trigger. Let's say you're going to be in, I don't know, you're going to be sitting on a bleacher somewhere at a game and you're going to be calling, I don't know, you're going to be sitting on a bleacher somewhere at a game,

and you're going to be calling somebody from there. Well, associate that image with that bleacher so that when you go down and you sit on that bleacher and you go, hmm, what was that phone number I have to call? You can just think about the bleacher you're sitting on and go, oh, yeah, I associated it with this bleacher. That'll work for short-term storage and for, you know, middle-term storage, so you've actually placed it somewhere. But for actually storing something, like keeping it in your house in a drawer or something, if you want to own that number for the long term, you should have an entire palace that's dedicated to information like this, so you can find it. It's categorized, it's placed

in some room where you've placed all such important numbers. And again, the bottom line here is just associate these numbers with locations. Don't just turn them into images. The image doesn't seem to be the problem here. The image seems to be storage. And the biggest thing that makes memorization stick for the long term is just having it associated with a location so that you can remember it by remembering that location. And Chris, for more information about this, I think you'd really benefit from going to masterofmemory.com slash start, which has a complete guide for starting

with mnemonics and for making information stick in the long term. It has information about number mnemonics, but also about structuring memory palaces and just lots of great information. And for everybody who's listening, you want to use the guide just to understand these episodes and to know what sort of language I'm speaking when I talk about all these mnemonics and the memory palaces and PAO systems and things like that. You'll find that in the guide at masterofmemory.com start. Meanwhile, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com question, and I'll talk to you again soon.