How to Improve Memory Recall Quickly

Memory recall is an essential and valuable skill. Whether it's for school, work, or simply enhancing your personal development, practicing memory techniques can increase your abilities and keep your mind sharp. The art of memorization dates back to ancient times, and history has recorded various intelligent methods to help people remember. With the help of modern psychology, improving memory can be broken down into five main techniques.

For example, if you need to remember the parts of the 1911 handgun slide. The parts that need to be memorized in order from front to back are:

• Slide
• Muzzle
• Barrel
• Firing pin
• Extractor
• Hammer

Understanding the method of association. The human mind is incredibly adept at making associations. This skill has become so ingrained that we can use it to memorize information. With this technique, you create a journey or a tour in your mind, linking it to the information you need to remember. Recalling this visualized journey or tour helps in retaining the information.

Exploring the applicability of the association method. The association method is highly effective, especially if you have a rich imagination. Throughout history, humans have applied various forms of the association method (such as visualizing walking through mental houses, observing imaginary rooms, or flipping through an imaginary book) to organize memory.

• Information that can be broken down and organized spatially is perfect for the association method – like poetry, parts of an engine, or steps in preparing a meal.
• Information that can't be easily divided often doesn't fit this method – such as the basic concepts of Abstract Impressionist painting, the history of the Wars of the Roses, or the steps to date someone.

Visualizing an additional memory chain and connecting it with the information you need to remember. You will use supplementary memories as "key anchors" to help you retain the information.

• This is why, if you have a list of unrelated information that can't be connected, forming a "key anchor" becomes difficult. For example, as mentioned earlier, we simply imagine ourselves as a tiny person entering a 1911 handgun.

Practicing by scanning images in your mind and memorizing the necessary information. This can either be enjoyable or simple and easy to remember, depending on your skill. In our example, the tiny person inside the 1911 handgun might say:

• "First, I encounter the muzzle of the gun, and inside I can see the barrel. Behind the muzzle and barrel lock, I spot a small hole that lets me see the firing pin, and to the left of this, there’s the extractor hook, pressed tightly against the slide. As I reach the end of the path, I come across the hammer mechanism of the gun."

Practice walking through and exploring the images in your mind. A few times each day, you should focus and recreate the images of the journey. The more you practice, the quicker you will be able to memorize the information.

Practice recalling the information you've remembered from the images in your mind. As you perform the imagery association exercise, your brain will become increasingly adept at forming mental representations, which serve as the "key anchors." However, that's not enough – you also need to remember the additional details in your imagined visuals. Try going in reverse – start with a list of information and see if you can accurately reconstruct the original mental journey or "key anchor."

Imagine you're trying to memorize a few states and their capitals from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States. The steps in this method will guide you on how to retain this information:

• To memorize through rote learning, you simply repeat the information multiple times until it becomes ingrained in your memory. This repetition helps the brain form new connections and patterns that aid retention – as neuroscientists say: “neurons that fire together, wire together.”

Note that the rote memorization method is only effective for certain types of information. Repeating information encourages the brain to form necessary connections for recalling or performing what you've memorized.

• This method works well for remembering hands-on steps and short lists, like grocery lists, how to start a car, or how to iron a shirt.
• However, rote memorization doesn't work effectively for remembering large amounts of separate information or complex concepts, like the periodic table of elements from left to right, dialectical materialism, or the parts of a car engine.

Make a list of things you need to remember. Ensure that your list is complete and organized in the order you need.

Read what you need to remember. To memorize the states, simply read and repeat the name of each state over and over.

Reinforce the information you need to remember without looking at the list. Try covering part or all of the list with a piece of paper and recall what has been hidden. Try scrolling down the page to cover the top photo's information—can you recall what the last two lines were?

• At first, you may remember incorrectly many times, but don't get discouraged! This is just the brain getting used to memorizing. Keep at it, and after a few minutes, you'll remember everything you need to.

Imagine you have to memorize the names of the countries in the United Nations Security Council. There are 10 countries on this list, and you can categorize them into groups.

Learn when grouping information is useful. This method works when you want to remember data that has been consolidated from smaller details in a logical order. For example, you could group countries by continent; elements in the periodic table could be grouped together; or when trying to recall parts of an engine, you might categorize the information into subcomponents (e.g., pipes, engine, exhaust, electrical circuits).

• If you're trying to remember a phone number, notice how we write numbers in a way that helps us group them. For instance, the hotlines for Ho Chi Minh City are easier to remember in chunks: (028) 88 247 247, instead of randomly 0, 288, 824, 7247.
• However, grouping is not suitable for large, complex data that can't be easily broken into smaller chunks. For example, it would be hard to group information to remember concepts like human rights, the characteristics of a country, or a list of phone numbers that are very similar.

Break the information you need to remember into smaller, more manageable and memorable groups. Since you're working with a large source of data, this method works best when the information can be logically categorized into groups.

Focus on memorizing small chunks of the information. For the example of the countries in the United Nations Security Council, try to remember the countries according to their continent groupings as shown in the image above.

Practice linking smaller pieces of information together. Memorizing individual chunks is just the beginning of remembering the full set of data using this technique—you'll need to combine the pieces. Try scrolling down the page to hide the information in the image above. How much of that list can you recall?

Imagine you need to remember a shopping list. Your list includes various items with no connection to each other.

Tìm hiểu xem việc tạo chuỗi liên kết phù hợp với thông tin nào. Nếu phải nhớ nhiều món đồ thì phương pháp này không khả thi; vì lẽ đó, phương pháp tạo chuỗi liên kết chỉ thích hợp với những danh sách ngắn chứa thông tin khó nhớ.

• Việc tạo chuỗi liên kết chỉ thích hợp với danh sách ngắn gồm những thông tin không liên quan đến nhau (chẳng hạn như danh sách gồm “cây cảnh, bàn phím, chai nhựa, gà con). Với danh sách này, bạn sẽ khó mà áp dụng phương pháp khác như chia nhỏ thông tin vì không có bất kỳ danh mục nào phù hợp để xếp thông tin theo nhóm.

Đặt câu hoặc tạo ra hình ảnh có chứa tất cả thông tin mà bạn cần nhớ. Đây là phần thú vị nhất của phương pháp này: câu hoặc hình ảnh càng kỳ quặc và lạ lùng thì bạn sẽ càng dễ nhớ thông tin hơn. Ví dụ:

• Bơ lạc và bánh mì sandwich hạt cà phê espresso được quấn bằng một sơi dây cáp mạng và được đâm xuyên qua một cây tuốc nơ vít.

Lặp lại câu hoặc tái hiện hình ảnh và sau đó nhắc lại thông tin mà bạn đã cố nhớ qua việc đặt câu hoặc liên tưởng hình ảnh. Bạn sẽ dùng câu hoặc hình ảnh như là chìa khóa để nhớ thông tin cần thiết.

• Bơ lạc và bánh mì sandwich hạt cà phê espresso được quấn bằng một sơi dây cáp mạng và được đâm xuyên qua một cây tuốc nơ vít
  =
  bơ lạc, hạt cà phê espresso, bánh mì sandwich, dây cáp mạng, tuốc nơ vít

Hình dung bạn cần phải nhớ công thức lượng giác cơ bản. Chẳng hạn như với yêu cầu này, bạn sẽ phải tìm cách nhớ sin, cos, tan của một góc trong tam giác vuông.

Learn about mnemonic techniques. A mnemonic is simply a term used in the field to describe a method you’ve likely encountered since school. If you’ve ever used the OSACOMP acronym to remember the order of adjectives in an English phrase (Opinion - Opinion, Size - Size, Age - Age, Color - Color, Origin - Origin, Material - Material, Purpose - Purpose) or “Nàng Mang Áo Sang Phố Sửa Cho Anh” to recall elements from the periodic table (Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar), you are already familiar with mnemonics.

Understand when mnemonic techniques are appropriate. If you need to memorize a large amount of information and cannot create a short sentence or phrase, applying this method might be difficult. For this reason, mnemonic techniques, much like creating a chain of associations, work best for a small set of information that can be grouped. Mnemonics are better suited for remembering lists of words but are less effective when trying to memorize long, disconnected lists, such as phone numbers or the digits of pi.

Create your own mnemonic device. A mnemonic is simply a key phrase or word that helps you remember information. For example, you could come up with a nonsensical word, but one that is easy to remember.

Practice recalling your mnemonic and the information associated with it. Try scrolling down the page to hide the content in the image above and see if you can still recall the information from your mnemonic.