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Remember Things by Association

Our memory works by remembering things through association. What this means is that every piece of information we have in our memory is connected to another piece in one way or another.

So if you were given the word, say, "apple", and then you may do something like this in order to remember what an apple is: "red, round, sweet, doctor, tree and fruit". Which as you can see is where such things as "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" may be a saying that people regularly use in order to remember that eating good healthy foods, such as fruit, will keep them from getting ill.

Also, if you were asked by some what the 7th letter of the alphabet was, then the chances are you would start off by saying to yourself "a, b, c, d, e, f, g" and then out loud you would say G. During this you have been using association, as you know that the first letter of the alphabet is A and you have kept on going through them until you have ended up the letter that you were looking for.

Although many people think that they have a bad memory, in truth, they don't. In fact, most of us have really good memories; it's just that we are not well practiced in using them to their full effectiveness. Yet, if this is true, then why do some people find it so hard to remember certain things?

As previously mentioned, our memory works using association. If there is no obvious association between certain things, then it makes it very difficult for us to remember them. Suppose, for example, you need to remember that the plane you are catching takes off at 2pm. However, as there is nothing about this particular plan which would suggest the number 2 to you, then it is easily forgotten, and unfortunately you may find yourself ending up missing your flight.

However, if as mentioned above, our memory works by association, then we should actively work at finding a way to create an association between the two bits of information relating to the flight. So, for example, you could imagine in your mind that the plane you need to catch at 2pm has 2 wings. There then is your association "2 wings = 2pm". In this way, we are 10 times more likely to remember the time at which the flight is due to take off, even once it has gone from our short term memory.

However, you may well find that when certain pieces of information are not obviously related, you will need to be a little more creative with linking things together in order to form an association. But it really isn't as hard as it may seem at first. When you were at school, you were always being taught rhymes and acronyms at school which helped you t remember things, so why not use the same method now? For example, one such one you may have learned at school was "Never Eat Shredded Wheat", which provides you with the points of the compass "North East South West".

These particular methods work, as they form an easy to remember, but yet clever association between themselves and the information that it is we are trying to remember.

The whole idea when using association in order to remember things is to be creative. There is no need for you to invent a rhyme or a poem for each time you want to remember something, in most cases, just thinking of some picture in your mind which links pieces of information together, which is either unusual or silly, can make it much easier to remember certain things.

If you want to see how effectively association works, then look at the some of the words shown below and try to come up with something that will associate the word on the left with the one on the right. Say, for example, with the first pair you should imagine a mouse that has a long tail and when it is sat still, it tail curls round in to the shape of the letter S. Whereas with popcorn, the easiest way to associate it with chair is that you are watching your favorite movie, either at the cinema or at home, and eating popcorn while lounging in a chair.

So now you have begun to form associations between these groups, you may have had trouble with 1 or 2 of them. Now cover up the words on the right hand side of the list and see if you can name them using the word that is associated with them on the left. If you have been able to form a vivid but clear association between each of them, you will be amazed at just how many of them you will be able to quickly and easily remember.