How to Improve Your Memory

Scores of books, videos, Web sites and seminars are devoted to memory enhancement. The steps below summarize the main points of most techniques; refer to the Related Sites for more specific and detailed memory tips.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Pens
• White Paper

1. Make sure you're alert and attentive before trying to memorize anything.

2. Understand the material rather than merely memorizing, if it's the type that requires deeper comprehension.

3. Look for larger patterns or ideas, and organize pieces of information into meaningful groups.

4. Link the new bits of knowledge with what you already know. Place what you learn into context with the rest of your knowledge, looking for relationships between ideas.

5. Engage your visual and auditory senses by using drawings, charts or music to aid memory.

6. Use mnemonics ' devices such as formulas or rhymes that serve as memory aids. For example, use the acronym 'HOMES' to memorize the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior).

7. Repeat and review what you've learned as many times as you can. Apply it or use it in conversation, as continual practice is the key to remembering things in the long term.

Tips & Warnings

• Things that interest you are easier to remember. Try to develop an interest in what you're memorizing.

• Your memory and thinking will function much better if you're in good health, well-rested and properly hydrated.

• Try writing down or reciting aloud what you've memorized ' this can help etch it into your mind.