6 Rules for remembering lists

Lists are used, so that we don't have to remember what we need to do, or the things we need to get. 

They are most frequently used in shopping, helping people fly around the shop at twice the speed.

What do you do if you forget your list?, Or don't even write one in the first place?

This is where remembering a list can be useful. Once you get better memorising lists, and take less time to store it in your mind, you wont even need to write a list any more. 

We have the capability to retain a huge amount of information, and still have the space to learn more. How we go about doing that, can largely effect how well we store the information and the ability to recall that information.

There are many different methods for remembering things, though there are only a handful or less that will work for you as an individual. You just need to stick with the one that suits how you think about things.

1. Link story. 

The link story method, is one of the easiest and one of the most well known memory tricks in the book. 

The concept is to make associations from one thing to the next, linking them via a mental story.

Quite often, the weirder and wilder the story, the more likely you are to remember it. 

For example: Say you have three items on a list (small list for example purpose), a banana, some bird feed and a football, and you have to try and link them together. The story I would think of, would be as follows: a person playing football, slips on a banana and lands in some bird feed. Or an even wilder story could be: a person is playing football on a banana boat, which is floating in a sea of bird feed.

Association will help build mental links in your brain, aiding in memorisation.

The length of the list, will depend on how far you are willing to go: 10 items, 20 items, 50 items, 100 items..

2. Number association. 

This is similar to the last technique, but this time you give each of your items a number. After assigning a number to each thing on your list, just try to remember them in order. 

For example #1.Elephant, #2.Lion, #3.Gorilla, #4.pen, #5.Niagara falls etc. 

This technique is harder than the previous one, but is a very simple trick. Repetition is the key.

An alteration of this is the alphabet association, substituting numbers the letters of the alphabet. When you get over 26, 27 will become AA, 28 will become AB, 29 will become AC etc. 

3. Number shapes. 

This is an okay technique, I don't particularly like it because of its frigidity. The technique involves allocating a thing on your list to a number that looks similar to it. Some examples of this would be: 1. candlestick; 2. swan; 3 heart (top bit of the heart); 4...

4. Picture allocation. 

This technique needs preparation, but only needs the main preparation to be done once. This requires you to think of a picture and designate it to a number (ignore your list at the moment). 

Once delegated, that picture will always be that number. For example: You might decide to allocate a tower to #1, a tidal wave to #2, they can be anything you want, but just as long as you can remember them.

Now when going through your list of things, and depending on their number in the list, will depend on which picture you link to. 

For example: Say that your first item was a chess-set, and your second item was some BBQ sauce. Link them to your already predetermined pictures. So you would link a chess-set to a tower (being picture #1) and BBQ sauce to a tidal wave (picture #2).

This is similar to method #1, but you have permanent picture to allocate your things too. It will however take a bit of time to remember the permanent pictures, but after, will be a lot easier to do.

5. Number pegs. 

This system requires you to imagine a coat peg, or any other peg that can hold things up. Once you have a firm image of the coat peg in your mind, look to your list of things. The things at the bottom of your list will be the things on the bottom of your imagery coat peg, and the things at the top of your list, will be at the top of your coat peg.

As you go through your list, imagine your filled coat peg, only being able to get to the next thing by removing the thing in front of it off the peg. Try to then remember putting the things back on the peg, in reverse order to how you took them off - that's tricky to do.

6. Journey method

This is a powerful method and is a variation of #4, but easier to remember depending on your chosen journey.

You will be choosing a journey and assigning each thing on your list to a particular location. It's a good idea to memorise your journey beforehand.

Once done, just link a thing on your list to a certain stage of your journey.

For example: 1. Bedroom - apples, 2. stairs - coffee, 3. front door - fill car with petrol etc..

This example is using a familiar route to me, as I can clearly imagine the route. You can imagine though, the headache you may get if you plan a journey around the whole of the world. So it's best if you use a familiar journey, unless you're up for more of a challenge.