The Sisyphus Comments

I Don’t Remember! – Part VI

In the previous five articles in this series, we discussed several techniques that will help improve your memory. Now, lets take a look at how you can put these techniques to use in a real life situation like a college course. College professors are notorious for assigning multiple chapters of reading material in the textbook. If you find yourself trying to digest a large amount of information from a textbook, just use the techniques we already introduced.

1. Start by identifying the purpose of reading the chapter. Take a second look at the course syllabus and the training objectives to help guide your study by helping you identify the overall course objective.
2. Next, take a “big picture” look at your textbook. Try to picture yourself doing a broad outline of the chapter’s content. If you were using a typical outline format, this would be the top level (I., II., III, etc.) of the outline. The purpose of this approach is to give yourself the broad topic area with which to associate the more detailed information that you will be committing to memory (association). It may also be useful to associate different ideas with each other.
3. Just like an athlete who pictures himself crossing the finish line first, you need to visualize the material that you want to commit to memory as you read. Remember the use of pictures will stimulate additional regions of the brain and help you remember the corresponding information. Try to picture yourself using the information under real life work conditions.
4. Don’t look back! Try to force yourself to concentrate as you read by only reading the material one time and then attempting to recall the important details.
5. Once you nail down the information that your want to retain, use repetition to imprint it into your memory.

Just keep repeating your new memory mantra “association, visualization, concentration and repetition” and before long you will find yourself easily recalling the information that you need for home, school or work. You may be surprised to find out that this same process will even improve your memory of non-academic related information like witness or victim statements, descriptions and instructions.

This will conclude the series on improving your memory. If you found the articles in this series useful or would like to add some of your own memory improvement techniques to the discussion, please take a minute to click on the “Comments” link below and leave your comment.

I Don’t Remember! – Part I

I Don’t Remember! – Part II

I Don’t Remember! – Part III

I Don’t Remember! – Part IV

I Don’t Remember! – Part V