I Don’t Remember! – Part V
October 7, 2007 – 7:39 am
Today, I’m going to “ARM” you with another tip for improving your memory. ARM is an acronym that a student in my son’s Spanish class came up with to describe the primary techniques used to teach a foreign language. It stands for Application, Repetition and Memorization (We actually thought about using RAM or MAR!). Since a big part of learning a new language involves committing the language to memory, I think this acronym can also be applied to help improve your general recall.
The component that I will discuss today is repetition. This simple memory technique can be employed anytime you are experiencing difficulty remembering information. Lets see if we can combine the memory techniques we learned in the previous articles in this series with repetition to help improve your memory. Do you remember them? Let me “re-mind” you.
For example, suppose you want remember your grocery list. We begin by categorizing each item that we are trying to remember i.e. fruit, meat, dairy product etc. (association). Next, picture (visualize) yourself picking up each item in the grocery store. Finally, realizing that if you forget an item, you may no be able to prepare your favorite dish tonight will force to pay attention (concentrate). Do this once and then repeat the same task several times. The repetition will help burn the information into your memory.
So, if you really need to remember something, just combine association, visualization, concentration and repetition and you will be so good at remembering things that they will probably want to make a movie about you. Maybe they will name it “Total Recall!” . . . or not.