Memory Methods: Associating I

If you think of the word ‘school-bag’, what things come into your mind?

Books? Pens and Pencils? Instruments box? Calculators? You will remember to check your school schedule and the times of your classes. You will even remember to complete your practical reports if there are any.

See! A word as simple as ‘school bag’ helps you remember loads of stuff! When you recall the memory of a small school bag, the memories associated with it are easily recalled.

It has been found that remembering things by connecting or associating the, with things that we can easily remember can keep our memory fresh for years. The method of relating or associating can drastically increase our level of memorizing things. If this method is that useful, then still why is memory so poor?

The answer is simple! Most of us do not  use the technique and those of us who use this technique fail to remember the associated memories and at the end we fail to recall the information we actually need.

Think about this, you recently got appointed in a business firm and you have a presentation to make. You are capable and really talented. You give a lot of time for this. You even skip your lunches and cutoff your family time, holidays and even your sleep. You try it real hard to make an impression….but what if you fail to remember actual date and time or even to make your presentation and reached the venue a bit late? What’s next?

Aw! It is horrible just to imagine. After all, first impression is the last impression. So better prevent it from happening. You can avoid the problem with memorization like the one above.

The first step is, think about something that you want to remember (often referred as item) and think of something that helps you recall the item (often referred as key).

Now relate the item and the key in such a way that if you think of the item, you can think of the key and if you think of the key, the item comes to your mind the next moment. Visual and acoustic association can be helpful.