I posted this below in the synesthesia thread and am RPing it here becasue I am lazy and it explains what I am saying:
This makes me think of that memory book I was reading of which I STILL forget the name. Something with Einstein. ANYWAY. It is all about old visualizing techniques for memorizing things, and how you place objects that symbolize whatever you are trying to remember in a visual soace in your head.
I CAN'T DO THIS. THERE IS NO VISUAL SPACE IN MY HEAD. I mean, they say to use an actual space, like your house, but even that is way too big an effort for my mind.
All of you people probably have much much much better memories than I ever will. The only way I have of memorizing something (like a phone number) is to repeat it a million times in my mind. I am so not visual.
Like on an exam? I'd just close my eyes and picture where a certain thing was written. Sometimes I have to work a little to conjure up the image. Like, I'll remember that the information on cell signaling was written towards the bottom of the page.....outside column.......THERE IT IS.
ETA: I have gotten in trouble before on exams, mostly when I was younger, because I can answer questions verbatim with the text from the book because I am reading it in my head during the test. Looks like I'm cheating. I had to learn to switch it into my own words.
I guess if I close my eyes I can see them, if I try hard enough. I always sucked at tests and math because I have a hard time seeing the stuff in my head and remembering it.
I walk in circles and memorize paragraph by paragraph if it was from lecture notes, I need a rhythm or visual. My memory works the same as MWOS' if it's coming from textbook.
Generally I see mental pictures relating to whatever it is I'm memorizing so that the mental image and information are forever linked together. Then down the line when I need to remember the information, I just recall the image and the rest is just associated with it.
Post by rupertpenny on May 2, 2013 14:11:42 GMT -5
I don't know, I just do. Writing things out helps me remember things. Like ninjabridemom I take notes and then never look at them again. Just writing it down helps.
Post by sherbanator on May 2, 2013 14:15:01 GMT -5
I do a lot of memorizing for my job. I have been Given airspace maps with hundreds of crossing routes and fixes and need to know them all the next day. It helps me to make an empty map of the same layout. Then I try to label the empty map by visualizing the original map in my head. I do it for hours v and hours. It is so hard to do and it doesn't sTick until I actually apply the knowledge. Also, I have to be able to quote thousands of things verbatim and have to apply it in a split second. I think you just get used to it.
In highschool and college, I re-wrote all my notes (2-3 times)
Now I try to take a mental photo and wish for the best. lol. My long term memory is pretty good, short term not so much. My brain seems to do better with placement of objects, words etc. (?) Got that?
Post by fuckyourcouch on May 2, 2013 14:22:05 GMT -5
I'm very visual. I just need to see things and they never leave.
For example, if someone told me the street names I needed to take to get somewhere I would not remember. But, if someone drove me there I would not need to know any names of streets, I would just remember what they look like and turn appropriately.
I also did the flash card thing to study because I could just picture the answer in my head. If it is number related, numbers just make a pattern in my mind, which is hard to explain. It's easy for me to remember even long strings of numbers like CCs, routing numbers, account numbers, phone numbers nobody has had for years, phone numbers I see in infomercials, my calling card number and account number from when I went to Europe in high school, etc. They just make a pattern spatially for me and it is easy.
I read it and then write it repeatedly until I can do it without looking at the words. I went through a great deal of paper in university, but it worked. It's the only way I can really get something permanently in my head.
If I'm going to the supermarket and I don't have a list, I'll repeat the first letter of the items to myself while I'm in the car on the way there.
Example: If I need to buy tomatoes, cereal, milk, and deodorant ... I'll repeat "TCMD" to myself a few times.
If I need to remember to do something the next day, I'll stare at something that I'm likely to see the next day and I'll repeat what I need to do in my mind a few times.
Example: I'm in bed at night and suddenly remember that I didn't pack my yoga gear for my office yoga class the next day, and I'm too tired to get up and pack it then. So I'll stare at my cell phone on the nightstand, or at the door to my bedroom, and repeat in my mind a couple times, "Remember to pack yoga gear." And when I wake up in the morning and shut off the alarm on my phone, or when I walk out of the bathroom door to go to the bathroom, I tend to remember what I had repeated to myself the previous night.
Or I'll just use the Siri reminder feature on my phone, lol.
Post by open24hours on May 2, 2013 14:29:23 GMT -5
I tap things out with my fingers. I work from left to right staring with my left pinky with one 'thing' being associated with one finger. I'm screwed if I need to remember more than 10 things.
I have a photographic memory. I can recite/re-read pages out of books that I read years ago.
In college I would make flash cards and I would just visualize reading the card and flipping it over and what the answer would be. Is that weird?
Really, honestly? A true, honest to god photographic memory? I am so freaking jealous if you do.
I remember things that are more interesting to me so I can almost completely re-read Catcher in the Rye in my mind but I can barely remember a word from Moby Dick (I've also read CITR more times so maybe that also has something to do with it). I remember almost all of my history, zoology and geography flash cards but don't really recall many of my flashcards from accounting.
For work, I am a research analyst and project manager so I have to color-code projects and that is how I organize them in my mind. Project A is everything with a green tab and Project G all has yellow tabs. So when someone asks me about Project A I just think of the project plan with the green tab and then re-read it. I can tell you completion percentages, notes that I wrote on the plan, and what resources are responsible for specific items. If you ask me about a project that I managed 3 years ago...I probably won't be able to re-read the whole page but I could tell you most of it.
When I am researching a topic/industry I assign the topic a code word (ex: CPAs) and then I re-read the webpage/print out.
I posted this below in the synesthesia thread and am RPing it here becasue I am lazy and it explains what I am saying:
This makes me think of that memory book I was reading of which I STILL forget the name. Something with Einstein. ANYWAY. It is all about old visualizing techniques for memorizing things, and how you place objects that symbolize whatever you are trying to remember in a visual soace in your head.
I CAN'T DO THIS. THERE IS NO VISUAL SPACE IN MY HEAD. I mean, they say to use an actual space, like your house, but even that is way too big an effort for my mind.
All of you people probably have much much much better memories than I ever will. The only way I have of memorizing something (like a phone number) is to repeat it a million times in my mind. I am so not visual.
For example, I play the piano. And I could play the same piece 432 times in a row perfectly, but if you asked me what the first chord was I'd be like "Uh..."
With numbers, I don't have to try, I just automatically memorize those for whatever reason.
The rest, I make a conscious effort while I am learning it to know that I need to remember it, or I write it down. I almost always remember things I write.
I am completely visual. Sometimes I will sit through a talk, not really remember what the person said, but I could tell you what the figures on all of the slides looked like. Not always super helpful.
I have a visual memory. For instance, if I am telling H where something is in the grocery store, I would say something like, "it's in the center of the aisle, on the top shelf and has a green and red label. I can't remember the name, but it's written in white and starts with an S."
If I write something down, I can remember where in my notebook I wrote it, in what color I was writing (I write a lot with colored markers), and where on the page the info I am looking for is.
If I am need to remember to do something, like not forget my lunch when I leave the house, I'll say to myself, "when I pick up my purse, I need to remember to get my lunch out of the fridge." That works most of the time.
“Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.” - Natalie Goldberg