by Brad Zupp
•Remember Names
•Remember Details of Clients, Prospects, and Coworkers
•Remember Entire Books
•Remember a Series of Items Like the Bill of Rights
•Remember Speeches and Presentations
Also review A Better Memory Every Morning here and the Toothbrushing Review here to prepare for your first days and weeks at your new job.
HOW TO DO IT
APPROACH 1
1Help your mind so your natural memory ability is free to shine. Use memory techniques for remembering more than your mind would normally be able to manage.
2Start by working with your mind instead of against it. This includes the “low-hanging fruit” of getting enough sleep, eating well, and exercising. Even more important are managing stress and focusing. Review the sections in the book that discuss these issues, especially Prepare Your Mind for Tests, which is about relaxing in the face of a difficult situation. Starting a new job is stressful, and every day can feel like test day!
APPROACH 2
There always seems to be one person whose name is hard to remember, a specific procedure that doesn’t make sense or doesn’t stick in the mind, or details that you have trouble getting exactly right. When that happens, remember to drive your way to success with CAR:
1Convert anything you have trouble remembering into a silly, exaggerated image. Make it huge, colorful, and active.
2Associate it with either another image (connect the question and answer or the name and face) or a Memory Palace. You can use your vehicle Memory Palace for short-term help or create work-specific ones for longer-term storage (your new office or building, for example, would be a great place to store work-related creative images).
3Review the images and resulting associations, adding details. Additionally, mentally review the images for important information two or three times per day at first until they are solidly stored in your long-term memory. I suggest reviewing at mealtimes as well as when you brush your teeth each morning and evening.
[ 54 ] Vocabulary Improvement for Business Success
YOUR VOCABULARY SAYS a lot about you. Having the right word, at the right time, and using it correctly impresses others and makes communication easier. Using the wrong word or pronouncing it incorrectly, though, can be embarrassing. I once used the word epitome but mispronounced it “ep-i-tome.” I still remember the look on the other person’s face—they thought I was an idiot! This memory hack is an outstanding way to confidently expand your vocabulary to stand out in any business environment (in a good way!).
THE TECHNIQUE The CAR Method Plus Vocabulary Words
Learning vocabulary words is the same as learning foreign words, only easier. You’ll use the CAR Method again: Converting the word and the definition into images, Associating them in a creative way, and then Repeating the association with additional details to make it more memorable.
My recommendation is a page-a-day calendar with a new vocabulary word to learn each day. If you can’t get one of those, look online for lists of words every adult should know. Pick one (or more) each day and use the CAR Method to start impressing people in just a few days.
HOW TO DO IT
1Convert the word (focusing on pronunciation, if necessary) and the word’s meaning into images.
2Associate the images with each other.
3Repeat, adding details.
Here are two examples:
Innate: inborn, something one has since birth
Pronunciation: in-ate
She has an innate talent for drawing.
1Convert: In-ate = in + eight = inside of an octopus (eight arms). Convert the definition: often a talent like drawing or musical ability or even getting oneself into trouble.
2A talented young artist drawing a SCUBA diver with his arm caught inside an octopus.
3Repeat, adding details.
Egregious: shockingly bad
Pronunciation: ah-gre-geus
He made an egregious error when he served steak to the vegetarian.
Looking at the pronunciation and definition should spark your creativity. When it does, the images come together quickly without necessarily having to complete every step.
1–2Convert and associate as you go: ah-gre-geus into “ahh” (mouth inspected at the doctor), “gre” (green), “geus” (just), which equals the patient saying “Ahh” for the doctor who sees that “just” part of the mouth is green. The doctor notes this an egregious issue.
3Repeat with more details. “But Doc, it’s ‘geus’ part of my mouth!”
This process is enjoyable and benefits your career. To make it even easier, pair up with a friend or group. It can be hilarious to hear how other people convert words and meanings into images.
[ 55 ] Remember Speeches & Presentations
ONE OF THE most frightening and stressful activities is public speaking. So much can and often does go wrong. I’ve seen people drop their carefully written and ordered notecards, forget their glasses and be unable to read their notes, and practice so much they don’t think they need any notes at all only to completely forget everything.
With your natural memory, assisted by a few simple techniques, you won’t need notes and won’t blank out. Imagine being able to speak with confidence—from memory. People will be impressed and think you’re a genius.
THE TECHNIQUE A Memory Palace for Your Speech
By now you have a lot of experience converting words and ideas into creative mental pictures. To remember speeches, you’ll convert your main points into images. You could associate them with each other with the Chain Method, but there’s a better method for speeches. It uses the Memory Palace to store your main points.
If you forget one link with the Chain Method, the rest of the speech could be lost. Using the Memory Palace allows for the possibility of missing one point but still being able to complete the rest of the speech. Since public speaking is so stressful for many people, it’s better to learn and practice this method. It’s safer in the long run.
HOW TO DO IT
1To begin you will create a Memory Palace with enough rooms to store every main point of your speech. This doesn’t have to be difficult. A Memory Palace is only a series of locations you can easily imagine—in order. Use a piece of paper to create this, as you may need to refer to it a few times later as you practice.
2Imagine your home. Where do you enter it? That’s location one. Write “1” and the place, like “front door.” What is the next major room or area? That’s location two. Write it down.
3Continue through your home. I prefer moving clockwise, so if you’re confronted with a choice of the bathroom on the left and the kitchen on the right, put the bathroom as the next room, and then the kitchen. However, it’s your mind and your Memory Palace. Write down the areas in the order that makes sense to you. Use major spaces like rooms, aiming for 10 to 20 locations. Some large rooms could have two areas, like the kitchen cooking area and the breakfast nook or table on the opposite wall.
4Finish writing down your Memory Palace, and then close your eyes and mentally walk through it. Do you naturally envision the same path? If not, fix it so you do, and then mentally review it once more. Is the path easy to remember and each space obvious? Keep reviewing, fixing as needed, until your mental walk-through visualizes the same spaces in the same order every time.
5Convert the main points of your speech into mental images or cues, the same way you’d summarize the point in a few words on each index card.
6Associate each mental cue with a location in your Memory Palace, in order. Convert specific details like sales data or other numbers using one of the number systems in this book. Give details their own locations so you’re sure to remember them.
7Mentally walk through your Memory Palace, adding details to your mental images with CAST (Color, Action, Size, and Texture). Make them silly and interesting to make them memorable.
8Stand up and practice your speech out loud, mentally walki
ng through each location and seeing the images of your main points. If one or two aren’t instantly memorable, fix them by repeating step 5. How bizarre can you make the image? That’s what you’re going for.
9Continue practicing out loud, standing up, and without notes. Make your mind recall the silly images from each location. Relying on your memory in practice will help you tremendously later.
This method is quite different from what you may be familiar with, but I encourage you to try it. The small learning curve is worth the effort because it is so powerful to deliver a speech or presentation from memory. People are very impressed with those who can do it. Once you practice this method, you’ll see how easy it really is.
[ 56 ] Remember Unique Passwords for Online Security
YOU MUST HAVE a different, completely unique password for every log-in. Period. Cybersecurity experts also recommend that each password be at least twelve characters long. Sixteen is better. How can you remember so many long passwords? “My browser remembers and fills them in for me.” But what happens if your computer is lost, stolen, broken, or you otherwise need to log in from a computer other than your own? Trouble! Many people use password management software, but several popular password managers have had major security flaws.
There are ample reasons to use the greatest password manager of all: your memory. This hack makes it simple to be secure.
THE TECHNIQUE Picturing the Anchor
I wrote an entire book about creating your own system for remembering passwords (The Hack-Proof Password System), but this section summarizes several of the main strategies. If cybersecurity is essential in your career, workplace, or industry, though, I encourage you to read the whole book.
The biggest problem with forgetting passwords is that people forget to anchor the log-in site to the password. You may remember that one of your passwords is 5V8k22/>19dpb but forget that it’s for the credit card account you rarely access. To remember passwords, always start by creatively changing the site into an image to use as the anchor.
HOW TO DO IT
1Start with the anchor. To picture the website, think of what the company or page reminds you of. If you have to log in to Grandpa’s House of Fish Food, picture the logo of Grandpa, your favorite fish, or an aquarium. Be obvious in your anchor image choice, not clever. You need to be able to recall the anchor even if you haven’t visited the website in months.
2Do you receive random passwords to memorize, like 8,b[X-Y,B/Q,ekQg? If so, use one of the number memorization systems, such as Alphabet Images, and creatively convert commas, dashes, and other characters into pictures. For example, a comma could be a snail and a slash could be a children’s slide. Then link them together by associating them with each other using the Chain Method. Repeat, adding details.
3When you create your own password, select words that link together, following these steps:
a]Create an image of the site as your anchor. Ask yourself what the anchor most reminds you of and picture it.
b] The next link in the chain is a word that reminds you of the anchor image. Picture that and connect it to the anchor image.
c] What does that link remind you of? Choose a word and picture that as the next link. Connect them creatively.
d] Keep going until you have at least three words and twelve letters.
e] Repeat the process, adding details to the images.
f] As soon as you log in to the site with your new password, immediately log off, then back on. Do this three times in a row so you’re typing and mentally reviewing your new password each time.
Here’s an example:
Grandpa’s House of Fish Food Website
Anchor: Your grandpa or Grandpa’s image from the website. What does Grandpa remind you of? My grandpa had huge ears, so the first word link in the chain could be “hugeears.” Add details as you picture Grandpa first and then the rest of the chain.
What do huge ears remind me of? Huge headphones: “headphones.” Huge ears are easy to mentally associate with headphones.
We need a few more letters. Headphones remind me of my favorite band: Room101. I can easily connect headphones with room101.
The entire password: hugeearsheadphonesroom101. Are there issues with this password? Yes. It would be better to have at least one capital letter and one symbol. Having a number at the end is very common and makes it easier to hack. See the tip to improve this.
TIP | SUBSTITUTE SYMBOLS
Develop your own password system with rules that includes letters you substitute a symbol for (not @ for “a” or any of the other obvious ones), which letters you substitute a number for (don’t use 5 for “s”), and which words or letters you will always capitalize. Pick up my password book, The Hack-Proof Password System, for an easy guide through this process to make sure you’re secure online.
[ 57 ] Remember Instructions from a Manager or Boss
THE BIGGEST CAUSE of a poor memory problem at work is multitasking. Trying to get too much done at once invariably leads to memory issues, because we aren’t bringing our entire focus to one issue at a time. That’s why it’s often hard to remember what our manager tells us. How do you listen attentively while still getting all your work done? You need to tell the task you’re working on that you’ll BRB (“be right back”) and turn your attention to your manager.
THE TECHNIQUE Breathe, Repeat, Bring to Mind (BRB)
This is like the CARE Method for remembering people’s details, but I’ve modified it for the work environment. BRB brings your attention to where it belongs (your manager) and lets you focus on them, remember what they say, and then get back to your previous task.
BRB stands for:
•Breathe
•Repeat
•Bring to mind
Let’s see how this can be used to never again forget something important you’re told at work.
HOW TO DO IT
1When your boss needs to tell you something, think BRB. Breathe in and out once, drawing your focus away from what you had been doing and toward your boss. If possible, physically break your current attention by turning toward them. If they’re calling you, look at the phone on your desk.
2Repeat a keyword or phrase that your boss says. This is another trick to bring your focus to what is being said.
3Bring to mind an image of what your boss wants or has said. Imagine yourself doing or finishing the task. The more details you can visualize, the sharper it will be in your mind.
Here’s an example:
You’re working on your TPS report when your boss walks by your cubicle. “Oh,” she says, “I need you to do something for me.” Think “BRB” and turn away from the computer and look at her.
Breathe in and out, focusing your attention on your boss as you do so. Listen as she tells you about the other big thing she needs done. Repeat, “Okay, you need the Penske file by the end of the day.” Picture Mr. Penske, the company logo, or turn the name into an image (a pen skiing). Remember that silly, strange, or funny images are easier to remember. Repeat as needed based on what else she says.
Before returning to your previous task, make a mental note, reviewing the conversation. To add a mental reminder of a certain date or time, read Master Due Dates of Assignments and Deadlines.
Completing the BRB steps before returning to your previous work will help your mind keep track of what you’re told and remember what to do when you finish your current task.
[ 58 ] Master Due Dates of Assignments and Deadlines
IF IT’S IMPORTANT, write it down! I’m a big fan of red marks on calendars and sticky note reminders for essential projects. Does that sound strange coming from a memory improvement expert? I believe that if forgetting something may have huge repercussions, it should be remembered and written down. Sometimes life happens and we forget no matter how hard we try or what technique we use.
After you’ve marked your calendar or written your sticky note, though, get busy making sure you remember it. Make your memory the pri
mary system and your calendar a backup system.
THE TECHNIQUE Envision the Day or Date
This is a straightforward method that requires a small upfront investment—or being very creative in the moment. It’s similar to the technique for remembering birthdays but uses a different anchor image: the name of the assignment, the person, client, or department that it’s for.
You’ll use the Month Memorization System or the Days of the Week System to keep track of the day. Adding the date is simple if you use one of the number systems. Connecting them together with the image of the assignment and adding creative details will keep it in your mind, especially as the deadline approaches.
HOW TO DO IT
1Create an image of the assignment by converting the name of the client or project into an image.
2Use one of the systems from earlier in the book (or your creativity) to imagine the month, date, or day of the deadline.
3Connect the assignment image and the deadline image. Make it creative and strange.
4Review and add details.
5Whenever you work on the assignment, think of the deadline and picture the odd image or movie.
Here are two examples:
The Denman file is due March 23.
1Image ideas for Denman: den = a bear’s den. Picture a half-bear, half-man creature.
2March = marching, a leprechaun, or St. Patrick’s Day. 23 = Michael Jordan’s jersey number.
3Picture a half bear-half man marching in a St. Patrick’s Day parade with Michael Jordan, passing a basketball back and forth as they go.
Your report is due on February 11, but there are other deadlines along the way.
January 3 Part 1 due
January 16 Part 2 due