How To Remember Places and Events

How to Remember Places
 
Different people have different abilities. Some are bestowed with the gift of direction. They are the ones who never forget how to arrive at a place of destination, no matter if they have to go through a labyrinth-like path to get there, and even though they've only been to that place once.
 
However, there are many people who do not possess that keen sense of direction. These are the people who just can't seem to remember the places they've went to, even if they've been to these locations several times before. Well, there's no need to get frustrated.

The first concept necessary to develop a good sense of direction is to have a deep interest in the places. You should begin to "take notice" of the direction of the streets or roads over which you travel - the landmarks; the turns of the road, even the natural objects along the way. Studying maps could help in awakening a new interest in them.

One of the first things to do, after arousing an interest, is to carefully note the landmarks and relative positions of the streets or roads over which you travel. So many people travel along a new street or road in an absent-minded manner, ignoring the features of the land as they proceed. This is fatal to place-memory. You must take notice of the thoroughfares and the things along the way. Pause at the cross roads, or the street-corners and note the landmarks, and the general directions and relative positions, until they are firmly retained on your mind.

When you go jogging or walking, start to see how many things you can remember. And when you return home, go over the trip in your mind, and see how much of the direction and how many of the landmarks you are able to remember. Take out your pencil, and attempt to make a map of your itinerary, giving the general directions, and noting the street names, and distinct features of objects along the way.

Then as you travel along, compare places with your map, and you will find that you will take an entirely new interest in the trip. You will see that you can now notice things you were not able to recognize before.
 
Remembering Directions

It may be difficult to remember directions because of too many bits of repetitious, unfamiliar data being fed into your mind. If you're going to remember a lot of left and right turns amidst all the roads and blocks you'll be traveling, chances are, you will get totally confused.

What you have to do is to ask for a landmark. If your friend tells you to "turn right after the third block," you can ask what landmark you will see when you turn right. If your buddy answers that it's a barber shop, then you will certainly know in what block you will turn right to.

Another dilemma would be on how to remember all the "lefts" and "rights." The solution is simple. You can convert "left" and "right" into clear images that represent these words. For example, you can use "lizards" for left and "rats" for right. So if your friend tells you to "turn right after the third block," you can imagine large furry rats scurrying all over the barber shop. If you can exaggerate it further, like visualizing the rats in sunglasses and gangster clothes, you can remember it even better.

Remembering Addresses

You can also use the methods you've previously learned in remembering addresses. For example, you want to remember 32 Cottonwood Avenue. You can turn 32 into moon (3 = m, 2 = n, then add vowels). Then for Cottonwood, you can visualize a large plank of dancing wood with cotton all over its body, eating cotton candy. Then link everything together. How about that large plank of wood with cotton all over its body, sharing and feeding some cotton candy to the bright round moon. Can you see them bond together so closely that they look like a perfect couple?
 
For larger numbers like 142, you can convert that to train (1 = t, 4 = r,
2 = n). You can visualize that cotton-covered wood riding a very happy train while they're singing a lively song together.

See? Not only do these methods help you to remember, but they are fun to do. Just keep on practicing. And don't think this is a chore. Have fun imagining things and you'll end up with a far better memory than ever before.

How to Remember Events

Can you still remember what your breakfast was 3 days ago? Can you recall what your boss announced yesterday regarding the company's new mission statement?
 
Don't panic if things like these escape your memory. You're not alone. Sometimes, we become too engrossed with a lot of our daily responsibilities that we tend to forget events or happenings we haven't paid much attention to.

If you will give to the occurrences of each day a mental review in the evening, you will find that the act of reviewing will engage the attention to register the events in such a manner that they will be available anytime for future retrieval.

Let this work be done in the evening, when you feel at ease. Do not do it after you retire. The bed is made for sleep, not for thinking. You will find that the subconscious will awaken to the fact that it will be called upon later for the records of the day, and will "take notice" of what happens, in a far more diligent and faithful manner.

Try this exercise. Sit down alone one night and spend fifteen minutes attempting silently to remember exactly the important happenings of the day. You may find that you could recall only little at first. You may not even recall what you had for breakfast. But after a few days of practice, you will find that you could recall more. Events will come back to you more precisely and more clearly than at first. If possible, relate to people close to you, the events of the day instead of recalling them to yourself. If the people you're relating the events to are interested in them too, you would become more motivated to remember them.

On the next page we will talk about Other Memory Tools.