and all the animals (such as elephant, giraffe, etc.) are following them. In 59, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans fled from China. The number 5 reminds us of fingers and 9 reminds us of planets. Visualize that when the Tibetans had to leave China, they were pointing their fingers towards the planets and asking for help and support. Here are the five pictures that we have formed: Hitler is sitting on a tripod and wearing a watch when he becomes the Vice-Chancellor of Germany. The Indians are celebrating their independence by driving their cars on a rainbow. Nelson Mandela’s family ties an octopus in the house when he is born. The US Army arrives in the Marshall Islands on a fleet of cars followed by animals. The Tibetans point their fingers to the planets and pray while leaving China. Now, close your eyes and visualize each of the five pictures. The advantage of
this system is that it simply does not allow you to forget what you have coded in the form of pictures. Suppose someone asks me, “When did Hitler become the Vice-Chancellor of Germany?” Then, immediately a picture of Hitler sitting on a tripod and wearing a wrist watch will flash in my mind. The word “tripod” reminds me of 3 (because a tripod has 3 legs) and the word “watch” also reminds me of 3 (because a wrist watch has 3 hands). Thus, I can conveniently decode that the year is (19)33. Quite similarly, if someone asks us, “When did India attain independence?” Then, immediately a photo of Indians driving a car (which triggers the number 4 in our mind) and flying on a rainbow (which triggers the number 7) reminds us that India attained independence in the year 1947. That’s quite easy, isn’t it? Critics will argue that one can remember a few dates anyway and there is no need to convert the numbers into pictures. However, remember that the real power of this technique will be evident only when you have to remember a large number of dates, such as 50 or 100 dates. It is only then that you will realize the true beauty of this system. Further, not only can this technique be used to remember historical dates, but anything and everything associated with numbers. If you want to remember that your ATM pin is 3411, you simply make a sentence as follows: Three dogs are barking outside my ATM at 11 pm. Remember that the word dog (or animal) reminds us of the number 4. Thus, whenever you go to the ATM, the picture of the three dogs and your watch showing 11 pm will strike in your mind. This will instantly remind you that your ATM pin is 3411. Alternatively, if your internet banking password is 321365 you can easily form a sentence such as this one: I have (32) teeth and (1) tongue in my mouth all (365) days of the year. This simple sentence will help you recollect your internet banking password is 321365.
Before ending this section, I would like to give you an additional example. It may not always happen that you have to remember a date beginning with the number 19. Suppose you have to remember a date in the year 840. Then just use the words octopus (for 8), car (for 4) and eggs (for 0) and make a picture which involves the three words. My team has done a survey to check the effectiveness of this technique. We randomly selected a group of 70 students from Grade 10 of Thakur Vidya Mandir in Mumbai, India (www.tvmmumbai.in). Next, we gave them a sheet with over 100 dates of world history and trained them with this technique. After one week, when we tested them, we were surprised at the results: 21 students remembered all 100 dates accurately. 58 students remembered between 90 and 100 dates. Nobody remembered less than 70 dates. The minimum score was 72 dates. Armed with the success of this survey, my team has taught this technique in over 300 schools across the world, and the response has been fantastic. It is said that “A picture speaks a thousand words”. It is time we teach our students how to use more visualization in their academics, rather than just make them mug up their subjects in a dry, rote manner. Remembering Playing Cards In this section, we will see how the conversion system can help us in remembering playing cards. You can use this technique to get an upper hand during card games, simply by remembering the cards that people hold or have exchanged with other players. This technique will go a long way in helping you win card games. As you would know, there are 52 cards in a standard deck, which are divided
into 4 suits. We have: Spades ( ) Diamonds ( ) Hearts ( ) Clubs ( ) Further, each suit has exactly 13 cards. We have Ace (A), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen and King. Thus, in all, there are 52 cards (13 cards per suit multiplied by 4 suits) and the Joker, which is the extra card. We will see two different techniques of memory. In the first technique, we will see how to remember the individual cards that players are holding. In the second technique, we will see how to remember the packs that players are holding. First Technique: Remembering Individual Cards In this technique, we use the conversion system. If you have not read about the conversion system so far, please read it before proceeding. As per our conversion system, the following objects are used to represent the numbers 0 to 9: 1/Ace nose, tie 2 shoes, hands 3 tripod, stumps, watch 4 car, animals 5 fingers, starfish 6 cricketer hitting a six, hexagon 7 rainbow 8 octopus, spider 9 planets
9 planets 10 egg We know the number 1 is represented by nose and tie. Since we do not have any card with the numerical value of 1, we will take Ace (A) as 1. Next, for a card with the numerical value of 2, we will take shoes or hands (as we have two shoes and two hands). Cards with numerical value 3 will be linked with tripod, stumps or watch (a tripod has three legs; there are three stumps behind a batsman and three hands in a watch). In the conversion system, number 0 is represented by an egg, but since we do not have card with the value zero, we will take the card with value 10 as egg. The following table will make this clearer. Let us suppose we are dealing with the suit of diamonds. This is how the cards will appear after conversion: Suit of Diamonds ( ) A Diamond studded tie 2 Diamond studded shoes 3 Diamond studded watch 4 Diamond studded car 5 Diamond studded starfish 6 Diamond studded hexagon 7 Diamond studded rainbow 8 Diamond studded octopus 9 Diamond studded Jupiter (planet) 10 Diamond studded egg J A jack wearing a diamond necklace Q A queen wearing a diamond necklace K A king wearing a diamond necklace So, if you want to remember that a particular friend, Mr Patrick, is holding the card, four of diamonds, in his hand, simply visualize that Mr Patrick is sitting in a diamond-studded car. Alternatively, if you want to remember that Ms Shreya is holding the card, queen of clubs, visualize that she is a queen who owns a huge
sports club. Example Three best friends, Jay, Brenda and Raj, have decided to play a game of cards. Each of them has five cards as follows: Jay: Q , 4 , A , 10 , K Brenda: 6 , 4 , 2 , J , 5 Raj: 10 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 To remember the cards that each of them is holding, we will form a short story by using the conversion system. When you are playing a live card game, you can form a story as the games moves along. First, let us begin with Jay. The cards that he is holding are queen of hearts, 4 of clubs, ace of spades, 10 of diamonds and king of clubs. In the following table, his cards are listed on the left side, and on the right side, you will read his story: Jay Q Jay lives with a romantic queen. 4 They are members of four clubs. A Jay has secretly hidden his ace spade in one of the clubs. 10 Whoever discovers it will get 10 diamonds K As a gift from the king who owns the clubs Simple, isn’t it? Just remember the following story: Jay lives with a romantic queen (Q ). They are members of four clubs (4 ). Jay has secretly hidden his ace spade (A ) in one of the clubs. Whoever discovers it will get 10 diamonds (10 ) as a gift from the king who owns the clubs (K ).
Next, let us move on to Brenda. Brenda 6 Brenda married a club cricketer. 4 He owns a diamond-studded car. 2 They purchased two clubs today J From a very romantic person called Jack 5 And gave him five diamonds in return Just visualize Brenda with a club cricketer, traveling in a diamond-studded car to buy two clubs. They meet a romantic person, Jack and give him five diamonds. It takes less than a minute, doesn’t it? Finally, we have Raj. Let us weave a story for him, too: Raj 10 10 days back, I saw Raj with a spade 3 Along with his three girl friends 7 They were digging a rainbow in search of diamonds 8 An octopus took away his spade 9 And hid it beneath a tree on planet Jupiter The club symbol also looks like a tree. Therefore, I have taken a tree to represent the club symbol in the story. The number 9 reminds me of a planet; therefore, I have taken Jupiter. So, you see that with a little bit of creativity and imagination, you can form a story with any set of cards. If the cards are exchanged, you can accordingly modify the story. If Brenda gives the four of diamonds to Jay, you can simply
visualize that Jay now owns the diamond-studded car. I have used this trick many a time while playing different games with my friends. It has increased my probability of winning, especially with games which involve less of luck and more of memory. Next, we will see how you can remember the sets of cards that people are holding in a card game. Technique 2: Remembering Sets In Western countries, there is a popular game called ‘Go fish’. In the Asian subcontinent, this game is called ‘Napoleon’. The objective of this game is to collect sets of all four cards by randomly asking players for them. A set of Jacks, for example, would mean all the four Jack cards (jack of diamonds, jack of spades, jack of clubs and jack of hearts). The purpose of the game is to collect as many sets as possible. The person with the highest sets in his kitty wins the game. Suppose Jay, Brenda and Raj were to play this game and each one of them had the following sets: Jay: 7, K,Q, 5 Brenda: 2, 3, 8, 9 Raj: A, 6, J, 4, 10 This is how we are going to remember their sets: Jay Jay lives on a rainbow with a king and a queen. They have a pet starfish. Brenda Brenda threw a shoe and a watch at an octopus on planet Mercury. Raj Raj is an ace cricketer. Once, Jack bowled four deliveries to him in which he scored ten runs. When you see Jay on the card table, just imagine Jay on a rainbow (7 colours) with a king (K) and a queen (Q). They have a pet starfish (5).
When you see Brenda, visualize her throwing her shoe (2) and a watch (3) at an octopus (8) on planet (9) Mercury. When you see Raj, visualize him as an ace (A) cricketer (6) , who hammers Jack (J) for ten (10) runs in four (4) deliveries. Conclusion With this, you have now learnt how to remember individual cards, as well as sets of cards. Once you start applying these techniques, your mind will automatically start forming pictures and associations. It will even develop its own version of techniques based on what it finds easy and suitable to remember. I wish you good luck with your card games. May you win a lot of games and a lot of jackpots!
Chapter 9 Remembering The Calendar How often do we face the worrisome situation when we are talking to someone on the phone and have to desperately rush to the nearest calendar to check the day corresponding to a particular date? Imagine a situation where you cannot only remember the entire calendar for the current year, but also all the calendars of the past one hundred years! In this chapter, you will explore some tricks to remember dates and calendars. After going through this chapter, you will be able to easily predict the day of any given date in a matter of seconds. Our study is divided into three parts: Calendar of one year Calendar of 100 years Infinite calendar Part A: Calendar of One Year Let us assume that we are dealing with the year 2014. Given below is a key on the basis of which you will be able to state the day corresponding to any date in the year 2014. Key 522 641 637 527
There are 12 numbers in the box. Each number represents a month of the year. The number 5 represents January, the next number 2 represents February, the number 2 after that represents March, and so on, up to the last number 7, which represents December. Each of these digits represents the first Sunday of its corresponding month. Therefore: January 5 is a Sunday; February 2 is a Sunday; March 2 is a Sunday; April 6 is a Sunday and so on. Based on the information above, you will be able to predict the day for any given date. Examples What day is January 7? According to the key, January 5 is a Sunday. Hence, January 7 is a Tuesday. What is the day on August 7? August is the eighth month of the year; so, we use the eighth digit in the key. The eighth digit that represents August is 3. We know that it represents the first Sunday of August. Since August 3 is a Sunday, August 7 is a Thursday. On which day does Christmas fall in the year 2014? The number 7 represents December. We know December 7 is a Sunday. Adding 7, we get December 14 as the next Sunday. Adding another 7, we get December 21 as the next Sunday. Since the 21st is a Sunday, then four days later, December 25 will be Thursday.
What day is September 20? The ninth number in the key, which represents September is 7. So, September 7 is a Sunday. The next Sundays are September 14 and 21. Therefore, September 20 is a Saturday. This key will work only for the year 2014. Because the first Sunday of every month keeps changing, we will have a different key for every year. The key for the next few years is as given below. Most of my students find this system very helpful. At the commencement of a new year, they take a calendar and make a list of the first Sundays of the twelve months and memorize it. Let us say that the year in consideration is 2015. On the very first day of the year, they remember the key corresponding to the year 2015. The key is 411 537 526 416 (refer to the table given above). Whenever the need to find out a day/date arises, they recall the key from memory and get the answer. There is no need for an actual calendar. Part B: Calendar for 100 Years Now, we will study a system of finding the day corresponding to any date in the entire century. After mastering this technique, you will be able to predict the day corresponding to any date from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000. You may use this technique on your friends, colleagues and relatives. Ask them to tell you the date on which they were born (for instance, February 5,
1984 or November 15, 1970). Based on their date of birth, you will be able to instantly tell the day on which they were born. Please note that the key given below is for the century 1901 to 2000. For the current century, that is, from 2001 to 2100, the key will be 733614625735. The remaining calculations are the same. Technique It should be noted here that the techniques mentioned in this chapter are not my invention. Many of these constitute the common wisdom of our profession. Different experts have different ways of predicting the day corresponding to a particular date. After studying many such systems and applying them in practice, I found the system described here to be extremely simple. It only involves the use of addition and division. Before proceeding with the technique, I will give you a key for the months. This key will remain the same for any year from 1901 to 2000. You will have to memorize this month key. To facilitate memorizing the key, I have made a small verse: It’s the square of twelve And the square of five And the square of six And one-four-six. The square of 12 is 144, the square of 5 is 025, the square of 6 is 036 and then you have 146. The verse will help you to memorize the key easily. I request you to be conversant with this key before proceeding. In this method of calculation, the final answer is obtained in the form of a
remainder. Based on this remainder, we are able to predict the day of the week, as shown in the table below. Remainder Day 1 Sun 2 Mon 3 Tue 4 Wed 5 Thu 6 Fri 0 Sat The day key is very simple and needs no learning. Next, we will list the steps used in predicting the day. Steps To find the corresponding day for any date given to you, you need to use the following steps: Take the last two digits of the year (for example, if the year is 1942, then take 42). Add the number of leap years from 1901. Add the month key. Add the date. Divide the total by 7. Take the remainder and verify it with the day key. These are the six steps that are required to predict the day corresponding to any given date. Note that the second step requires us to calculate the number of
leap years from 1901. A year is a leap year if the last two digits are divisible by 4. Hence, the years 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, and so on are all leap years. If you are asked to calculate any date in the year 1917, then you will have to add the digit 4 in the second step, as there are four leap years from 1901 to 1917 (1904, 1908, 1912, 1916). If you are asked to calculate a date in the year 1925, then you will have to add the digit 6 in the second step, as there are six leap years from 1901 to 1925. Examples What day was January 1, 1941? When we divide 53 by 7, we get the quotient as 4 and the remainder as 4. However, we are concerned with the remainder only. From the day key, it can be seen that the remainder 4 corresponds to Wednesday. Hence, January 1, 1941 was a Wednesday. What day was June 26, 1983? The year will be taken as 83. The number of leap years (from 1901 to 1980) is 20. The month key for June is 5. The date is 26. These add up to 134, which gives a remainder of 1 when divided by 7. The remainder 1 corresponds to Sunday in the day key.
Therefore, June 26, 1983 was a Sunday. What was the day on August 15, 1947? Year: 47 Leap Years: 11 Month Key: 3 Date: 15 The total is 76. When divided by 7, it gives a remainder of 6. Thus, August 15, 1947 was a Friday. Since I was explaining the concept for the first time, I solved example (i) in detail. However, as we moved to examples (ii) and (iii), we solved them much faster. With enough practice, you will be able to predict the day corresponding to a particular date in less than 12–15 seconds. Once the month and day keys are properly memorized, the remaining calculation is just elementary mathematics. Leap year calculations Please note that if the given year is a leap year, you must look at the month before making the calculation. Let me explain through an example. Suppose that you are trying to calculate a date in the year 1916. Then, the obvious question that will arise in your mind is whether you should take the number of leap years as four (1904, 1908, 1912, 1916) or three (1904, 1908, 1912 and ignore 1916). Solution In this case, you must look at the month. If the given date in the year 1916 is in either January or February, then you must take the number of leap years as three. However, if you are looking at a date from the months of March to December,
you must take the number of leap years as four (because the extra day in the leap year is added after February, in the month of March). Thus, if you are calculating the day corresponding to February 1, 2016, then take the number of leap years as three. However, if you are calculating the day corresponding to March 1, 2016, then take the number of leap years as four. Example (iv) Find the day corresponding to July 1, 1944. The year is to be taken as 44. Leap years = 11 (1944 is included, because the month is after February). The month key is 0. The date is 1. The total is 55. Dividing this by 7 gives a remainder of 6. Thus, July 1, 1944 is a Friday. (v) Find the day corresponding to February 10, 1948. In this case, we observe that the year is a leap year and the month is February. First, we take the year as 48. Next, we add the number of leap years as 11 (not 12, because the month to be considered is February). The month key for February is 4.
The date is 10. The total is 73. Diving this by 7 gives a remainder of 3. The remainder 3 signifies Tuesday. Thus, February 10, 1948 is a Tuesday. With this, we have seen how to remember the calendar for the whole century from 1901 to 2000. For the calendar of 2001–2100, only the month key will change; the remaining calculations will remain the same. As stated before, the month key for the 100 years from 2001 to 2100 is 733 614 625 735. Part C: Infinite Calendar We will now study Zeller’s Rule, which will help you calculate the day corresponding to any date of any century. However, Zeller’s Rule is more of a mathematical concept than a memory concept; therefore, we shall not elaborate much on it. Readers averse to math may ignore this section. You can find the day corresponding to any date by using the following formula: F = k + [(13 x m-1)/5] + D + [D/4] + [C/4] - 2 x C, where k: date m: month number D: Last two digits of the year C: The first two digits of the century Rules In Zeller’s Rule, the year begins with March and ends in February. Therefore, the month number for March is 1, April is 2, May is 3 and
so on up to January, which is 11 and February, which is 12. January and February are counted as the 11th and 12th months of the previous year. Therefore, if we are calculating the day corresponding to any date in January 2026, the notation will be (month = 11 and year = 25) instead of (month = 1 and year = 26). While calculating, we do not consider numbers after the decimal point. Once we have found the answer, we divide it by 7 and take the remainder. As before, a remainder of 0 corresponds to Sunday; a remainder of 1 corresponds to Monday; remainder 2 corresponds to Tuesday and so on. If the remainder is negative, then we add 7 to it to determine the corresponding day. Examples Find the day corresponding to June 26, 1983. Here, k is 26, m is 4, D is 83, and C is 19. F = k + [(13 x m -1)/5] + D + [D/4] + [C/4] - 2 x C = 26 + [(13 x 4 - 1)/5] + 83 + [83/4] + [19/4] - 2 x 19 = 26 + [51/5] + 83 + [20.75] + [4.75] – 38 = 26 + 10 + 83 + 20 + 4 - 38 (we drop the digits after the decimal) = 105 When 105 is divided by 7, the remainder is 0. Thus, the day is a Sunday. Thus, June 26, 1983 was a Sunday. Find the day corresponding to February 4, 2032. As mentioned in the rules, February is taken as month number 12 and the year will be the previous year. Thus, the value of D will be 31 instead of 32. The values of k, m, D and C are 4, 12, 31 and 20 respectively. F = k + [(13 x m -1)/5] + D + [D/4] + [C/4] - 2 x C = 4 + [(13 x 12 - 1)/5] + 31 + [31/4] + [20/4] - 2 x 20 = 4 + [155/5] + 31 + 7 + 5 – 40 = 4 + 31 + 31 + 7 + 5 – 40
= 38 When 38 is divided by 7, the remainder is 3. Therefore, February 4, 2032 will be a Wednesday.
Chapter 10 The List System Let us cut the theory for a moment and jump straight into action! In this chapter, you will learn about a wonderful memory technique that you can use to remember an entire list of things. It could be a list of things that you want to discuss with your colleagues in a meeting, get from the market or execute before a party. You can use the list system in all such situations. We shall make two lists – permanent lists and temporary lists. Permanent lists always remain fixed; they never change. Temporary lists change all the time. Before we go ahead, I would like you to look at the table below. We have made a list of ten members of your family, from the eldest to the youngest. Permanent List: Family Grandfather Grandmother Father Mother Uncle Aunt Elder Brother Elder Sister Younger Brother Younger Sister We start with your grandfather and end with your younger sister. This is your permanent list. If you have many younger brothers and sisters (siblings or cousins), please select any one brother or sister. Now that your list of ten family
members is finalized, let us try to memorize a list of ten randomly selected objects. Example 1 There are ten things that you want from the market. This is the list that you want to memorize, so that you do not forget any item. Temporary List: Shopping Sunglasses iPod Shaving Cream Louis Vuitton Bag Casino Chips Apron Guitar Diamond Necklace Pokémon Cards Archie Comics Strategy In this system, we will associate each element of our permanent list with each element of the temporary list and form ten easy visuals.
We have formed these visuals: Your grandfather is wearing sunglasses and relaxing on a beautiful beach. Visualize him doing that right now. Your grandmother is listening to an iPod and headbanging at a rock concert. Remember, the funnier the picture, the easier it is to remember. Your father goes to office with shaving cream on his face. Your mother is flaunting a lovely white and gold Louis Vuitton bag. Your uncle is entering a huge casino with casino chips in a black bag. Your aunt is wearing a dirty and torn apron and cooking food in her kitchen. (We could have taken any apron, but a dirty and torn apron will help you visualize and remember better.) Your elder brother is playing the guitar at a concert and the audience is applauding him. Your elder sister is wearing a diamond necklace with a price tag of one million dollars! Your younger brother has a cupboard full of Pokémon cards.
Your younger sister is reading Archie comics in a library.
Impact You have now entered the shopping mall. You know you have to get ten things. So, your mind starts to recollect things one after the other. It knows the first person on your permanent list is your grandfather and he is wearing... sunglasses! And lo and behold, you have remembered your first item. Next, you
know that the second person is your grandmother and you see her headbanging at a rock concert. But wait a minute, what has she inserted in her ears? It’s an iPod. So, your second object is the iPod! Thus, you will remember all the ten things that you want to purchase. Test In this way, you should be able to recall the names of all the ten things. The family list is given to you below. Based on the example, try to fill the shopping list on your own. Did you get all ten words correctly? If you got at least eight or nine, it is praiseworthy. If you got all ten correctly, then it is outstanding. Example 2 Yesterday, you bought ten things from the market. But today is a new day and now, you have a new task. You have a wedding ceremony in your family and you have to call ten different people to help organize it. If you forget any of them, you will have an imperfect wedding ceremony. Here is a list of people with whom you must coordinate for today’s ceremony
without fail. Temporary List: Wedding Call the priest to solemnize the wedding. Call the chef/cooking lady to prepare food. Call the banker to transfer funds. Call the beautician for the bride. Call the musician. Call the singer. Call the photographer. Call the fashion designer. Call the electrician. Call the florist. Strategy Our permanent list of family members remains the same. We do not need the shopping list. It was a temporary list anyway and we have already bought what we needed. Today is a new day and we have a new task at hand – that of helping to organize a wedding. Once again, our kind family will come to our rescue. I want you to fill both the lists The ten pictures for this task are as follows.
Your grandfather is an old priest who has all the requisite knowledge for solemnizing marriages. Your grandmother is a chef/cooking lady and has made awesome Manchurian and noodles (Close your eyes for a couple of seconds after every picture and actually visualize your family member in it). Your father is a banker with Citibank (or whichever bank you use) and is sitting on a pile of currency notes. Your mother is a beautician who is doing the makeup for Miss Universe contestants. Your uncle is a musician and is playing a golden flute. Your aunt is a singer and sharing the stage with Lady Gaga. Your elder brother is a wildlife photographer and is clicking pictures of wild elephants. Your elder sister is a fashion designer and is dressing up celebrities for the Cannes Film Festival. Your younger brother is an electrician and is fitting tube-lights and bulbs in your house. Your younger sister is a florist and is gifting bouquets to people on the road. Quickly try to visualize all the ten pictures in your mind. Now that you have made new pictures of the wedding tasks, you will notice that your mind automatically forgets the shopping items that you had associated with your family members. Your mind automatically replaces the old temporary list with the new temporary list. In addition to this, it never forgets the permanent list! Test
This time, I want you to fill both the lists – the family list on the left as well as the list of the wedding staff on the right. Check how many words you got correctly. If you got at least 16 correct (eight each on the left and the right), then it is commendable. The List Method is extremely useful to remember daily appointments, tasks or items to be procured from the market. The permanent list remains the same forever. The temporary list can be altered on a daily basis. I, too, have a permanent list for my daily use. However, instead of family members, I use the members of the Indian cricket team on my permanent list. Every morning, I make a mental list (no need to use pen and paper) of the tasks that I have to get done. Next, I associate each task with a cricketer of the Indian team. The first task is associated with the first cricketer. The second task is associated with the second cricketer and so on. The whole exercise does not take more than 60 seconds.
After each task is over, the cricketer gets out of my mind. At the end of the day, I have to get all the cricketers out (complete all the tasks). Trust me, ever since I have been using this system, my efficiency has increased considerably. There is no scope of forgetting a given task. You can use this system too. If your clients and friends are constantly complaining that you forget things, you can use the list method to remember all the things that you have to get done each day. Even housewives can use it to remember things to be procured from the market. Advanced Technique for Students This advanced method is only for students. If you are not a student, you can skip this section. Students giving exams are required to memorize many answers from their textbooks. In such situations, the best method is the Link Method explained in this book. Nothing can beat the efficiency of this method. However, you may also use the List Method (explained in this chapter). I will explain the system. Use it if you are comfortable with it; otherwise, you can ignore it. Every individual has a different mind; therefore, I cannot judge what system would work best for you. My job is to give you the maximum techniques and options. I leave you to decide what to use and what to ignore.
Strategy Imagine a typical situation in a student’s life. You have an exam tomorrow, for which you have to remember 15–20 answers. You just want to remember the main points of each answer, because you know if you remember the main points, you can easily elaborate on them and write the complete answer. However, there are so many chapters and so many answers. So, what do you do? One permanent list will not be sufficient for this. You will have to make many permanent lists. You can choose lists based on different areas of interest and people, such as sports, movies, politics, friends, neighbours, relatives, or any other list that you like. I have made some sample lists for you on the next page. Examples of Multiple Permanent Lists
Here, you can see different permanent lists. You can use each list to remember one answer. So, when you open your textbook and start studying, pick the first list and assign the first answer. Pick the second list and assign the second answer, pick the third list and assign the third answer and so on. Strategy Suppose you have an Economics exam tomorrow and you have to remember the topic, Problems of the World Economy. This topic has the following ten points: Problems of World Economy
Overpopulation Poverty Illiteracy Unemployment Traffic Congestion Natural Calamities Corruption Technological Waste Pollution Terrorism You want to remember all the points in the same order. So, you select one permanent list from above, say, the list of your Best Friends. In the table given below, write the names of your ten best friends: Best Friends Friend 1: ______________ Friend 2: ______________ Friend 3: ______________ Friend 4: ______________ Friend 5: ______________ Friend 6: ______________ Friend 7: ______________ Friend 8: ______________ Friend 9: ______________ Friend 10: _____________ Read the list a couple of times until you are familiar with the order of your friends. (Even if you forget the order, no problem, the important thing is to get all the ten names correctly.) Now, we will start linking both the lists:
Visualize your first friend (name: __________ ) has 2,000 children in his family! He lives in an overpopulated house. See your friend with the 2,000 children surrounding him. Your second friend has suddenly become poor and he is now begging on the streets in tattered clothes. Your third friend is illiterate. Visualize him reading a book upsidedown. Your fourth friend is unemployed and desperately scanning the newspapers for job vacancies. Your fifth friend is driving a golden Audi, but is stuck in a traffic jam and is cursing everyone loudly. Your sixth friend is standing on the beach. Suddenly, a tsunami wave (natural calamity) erupts and engulfs him completely. Your seventh friend is corrupt. Visualize him hiding money in his shirt, pants, shoes and cap. Your eighth friend has to be linked with technological waste. Visualize he has 100 old mobile phones in his garbage can. Your ninth friend has to be linked with pollution. Visualize he has a chimney on his head, which is emitting smoke. Your tenth friend is the victim of a terrorist attack. Someone has shot
him, the bullet has hit him in the leg and it is bleeding. We have formed ten highly exaggerated pictures. Go through all ten once again. Now, imagine you are sitting in an exam hall and are asked the same question: Q.: What are the problems of the world economy? Without looking at the explanation above, I want you to recollect all the ten points. Remember, I am not interested in the names of your friends. The names of your friends are only a support and a tool to help you remember. You can remember them in your mind. I am only interested in knowing the ten points of the answer to the above question. So in the table below, try to recollect the ten problems that the world economy is facing. Now, check your performance to see how many points you were able to remember correctly. Of course, like everything else in the world, you too, will get a grip on this technique, after a little bit of practice. Personally, the list system helped me tremendously in my college days. When I was giving my final year Law exams, my professor once announced a surprise test in the class. We had to revise three big chapters and had only about 20
minutes to do so. I quickly glanced through my textbook. I saw that I had to learn 15 answers, each of which had about 8–10 points. My fellow students frantically started flipping through the pages of their books. Fortunately, I had my memory techniques. I quickly linked the first answer with my family, the second answer with my favourite politicians, the third answer with my favourite tennis players (Federer, Nadal, Agassi, Sharapova, etc.). Believe it or not, within 20 minutes, I had perfectly remembered all the points of all the answers. I was able to give my exam with tremendous peace of mind. When I was writing the paper, the points started flashing in my mind one after another. Needless to say, when the results were announced, I had got full marks in the exam.
Chapter 11 The Peg System Back in the 1980s, experts in memory knew the techniques for remembering small numbers, such as historical dates (1862, 1931 or 1945) or briefcase passwords (51632 or 67995). The issue that now posed a challenge for them was how to remember telephone numbers (that had 8–10 digits) or how to remember very large numbers, such as the value of the constant pi up to 100 digits. It was this necessity which compelled memory experts to design the Peg method. The Peg Method is a simple but brilliant system that will help you remember very long numbers with ease, because in this method, you remember numbers without actually remembering the numbers! Confused? Well, let me explain. The Peg Method simply converts numbers into letters. So, instead of remembering the numbers, you now have to remember letters associated with them. Each number from 0 to 9 has been assigned letters. If you recall, in the Conversion System, we had assigned an object or image to each number. So, 1 is nose, 2 is hands and shoes, 3 is fan and so on. In the Peg Method, however, we simply assign a letter of the alphabet to each number. Take a look at this list: 1 = B, N 2 = M
3 = T 4 = D, R 5 = L 6 = S, C, K 7 = H, V 8 = G, F 9 = P 0 = J, Y For the number 1, we have taken the letters B and N. For the number 2, we have taken the letter M. For the number 3, we have taken the letter T. For the number 4, we have taken the letters D and R. Now, the obvious question that will arise in your mind is why we have taken these letters in particular. Why did we not take any other letters? Is there some logic to this selection? Yes, there is indeed a strong logic in this technique. You see, in order to make you remember the whole list instantly, we have designed a small verse where each number rhymes with the word. Here is the list again, with its verse: 1 is BuN 2 is Moo 3 is Tea 4 is DooR 5 is Lie 6 is SiCK 7 is HeaVen 8 is Gate/Fate 9 is Pine 0 is JoY The rhyming word for 1 is BuN; so, we know that the letters assigned to the number 1 are B and N. We ignore the letter U. In fact, in the Peg System, we always ignore the five vowels, A, E, I, O and U. You will soon find out why we do this.
The rhyming word for 2 is Moo. Thus, for 2, we will take the letter M. The rhyming word for 3 is Tea. Thus, for 3, we will take T. The rhyming word for 4 is DooR. Thus, for 4, we will take D and R. The rhyming word for 5 is Lie. Thus, for 5, we will take L. The rhyming word for 6 is SiCK. So, we take the letters S, C and K for 6. The rhyming word for 7 is HeaVen. Thus, for 7, we take the letters H and V. We cannot take N , because the letter N is already assigned to 1. The rhyming words for 8 are Gate and Fate. So, we take the letters G and F. Again, we cannot take T from these two words, because T is already assigned to 3. Also, if you look at the letters G and F, they both look like 8 when you write them in cursive (g, ). The rhyming word for 9 is Pine. Thus, for 9, we take the letter P. In addition, the number 9 and P are mirror images of each other. This makes the association easy to remember. For 0, we have taken the word JOY, because in this word, a circular O is surrounded by the letters J and Y. Revision Before we go ahead, let us revise the full list: 1 is bun, so 1 is B and N. 2 is moo, so 2 is M. 3 is tea, so 3 is T.
4 is door, so 4 is D and R. 5 is lie, so 5 is L. 6 is sick, so 6 is S, C, K. 7 is heaven, so 7 is H and V 8 is gate and fate, so 8 is G and F. 9 is pine, so 9 is P. 0 is joy, so 0 is J and Y. (Please note that we have not assigned the letters Q, W, X and Z to any number.) I request you to turn away from the book and quickly try to memorize the whole list. This will help you to understand the examples better. Example 1 Let us suppose I have a credit card whose 16-digit number is 3783 4151 8631 8147. I want to remember this entire 16-digit number, so that I can easily transact on the Internet without rushing to locate my credit card again and again. Guess what? With the help of the Peg System, I can easily remember this entire number in just one minute. Here are the steps to do this: Convert the numbers into letters. Add as many vowels as you want. Make words and sentences. Here, we can see that my credit card number is 3783 4151 8631 8147. I am going to do the conversion as follows.
The number 3 becomes T. Next, the number 7 can be H or V. I have taken H. For the next number 8, I can take F or G. I randomly choose to take F. Next, for 3, I take T again and so on. After conversion to pegs, my credit card number is ‘THFTRBLNGSTNGNRS.’ Next, I can add unlimited vowels in between to create meaningful words or sentences. This is how I will do it: TH(e) F(u)T(u)R(e) B(e)L(o)NGS T(o) (E)NG(i)N(ee)RS Observe this carefully. I have simply inserted a few vowels (in parentheses) and my sentence now reads, “The future belongs to engineers!” I simply need to remember this sentence now, and with its help, I can recollect my credit card number whenever I want. If I am purchasing an air ticket online where I have to enter my credit card number, my mind remembers the sentence “The future belongs to engineers” and mentally starts converting every letter to its corresponding number. T is 3, H is 7, F is 8 and so on. Of course, like everything else in life, the peg system requires a bit of practice until you become familiar with it. Some gifted people are naturally good at remembering long numbers. They do not need the Peg System. If you are one of those naturally blessed, who can remember telephone numbers and bank account numbers with ease, then this system is unnecessary for you. However, if you are one of those who struggle to remember numbers, the Peg System could be of great help to you. Example 2 Let us suppose you have a frequent flyer number with an airline. The number is
4347561418. We will quickly remember it using our standard steps: Convert the numbers into letters. Add as many vowels as you want. Make words and sentences. Step 1: Convert the numbers into letters. Step 2: Add as many vowels as you want. (Ai)R TR(a)V(e)L (i)s B(o)R(i)NG Step 3: Make words and sentences. Air travel is boring. So, you can see by simply remembering the sentence that “air travel is boring”, I can easily remember my frequent flyer number. Whenever the need arises, I can reconvert the letters and the digits will automatically flash in my mind. How to remember telephone numbers We can also use the Peg Method to remember telephone numbers, by converting the digits into letters. In reality, however, it is usually too cumbersome to convert all the digits into letters. Moreover, it often results in more confusion than clarity. Here are some other general tips that you can use to remember phone numbers.
If you are gifted with numerical memory, then you will easily be able to remember telephone numbers. However, if you are not gifted with numerical memory (that is, you generally struggle to remember numbers), then do not try to be a superhero by attempting to remember everyone’s phone numbers. Zero down on a few selected, important people whose numbers you want to remember and then start the process. Suppose you have listed seven important people whose numbers you want to memorize. Let us suppose each of them has a ten-digit cell phone number. Of the ten digits, the first two or three digits are often common, based on area code or service provider code. So, you simply have to remember the remaining numbers. Next, whenever you dial their numbers from your cell phone, do not use the auto-dial option. Instead, manually type each number by using the keypad of your phone. Why should you do that? When you manually type each number on the keypad, you will repeat the numbers in your mind, which will aid memory. Your mind will not remember the full number in the first attempt. First, it will remember the easiest part of the telephone number. Suppose your friend’s number is 9867950012. Your mind will not remember the whole number in the first attempt. This is probably how it will remember the number: After one or two attempts: 9xxxx500xx After a few more attempts: 9xxxx50012 After another few attempts: 986xx50012 And finally: 9867950012 The human mind has a natural ability to break whatever is complex into simpler structures and then digest it. After a few attempts, the selected phone numbers will automatically be stored in your subconscious mind and will easily pop up in your mind whenever you need them.
Chapter 12 The Repetition System I often conduct memory awareness workshops for school and college students. For one such event, I was invited to speak at an Islamic religious school. Seated in the audience were young students in the age group of 12 to 15 years. The interesting part was that each of these students was a hafeez. A hafeez, according to Islam, is a person who has memorized the entire Holy Quran, the religious book of the Muslims. You can quote any sentence from the Holy Quran and they will tell you the exact chapter number and verse number from which that line is taken. While interacting with the students, a question started bothering me. How could these young students confidently memorize 400-500 pages of a book, without any formal memory training? I requested the organizers to send one of the bright students backstage, so I could discover his strategy. They sent a 13-year-old boy and this is what he had to say. “Mr Bathia, we have never learnt any of your professional techniques in the past. Here, we are taught only one technique – constant repetition. Every morning, we gather in our groups. Our teacher selects a few verses from a chapter and goes on reciting them until we have perfectly memorized all of them. The next day, we select another set of verses and memorize them. We do this for five days of the week. On the sixth day, we revise all that we have learnt in the preceding five days.” “So, it is five days of learning and one day of revision?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “And what do you do on the seventh day of the week?” “The seventh day is a holiday. It is a time to relax.” He smiled cheekily and went away. I was impressed by the boy’s words. The school’s system was bang on target. To understand the science of this system, we will first discuss how the human brain works. Our brain, in its physical design, is a vast network of neurons, very similar to a vast, dense network of trees in a jungle. Imagine a dense forest full of trees, shrubs and creepers. If you want to create a small pathway in this dense forest, you will have to cut through the trees regularly. The more frequently you cut, the clearer the path becomes and the easier it is for you to access it. However, if you leave the pathway idle for a long period, the trees and shrubs will grow over it again, making it difficult for you to access it. It is the same with memory. Whenever you recite something, you create a pathway in the vast, dense network of neurons in your brain. The more you recite repeatedly, the clearer the pathway becomes, making it easy for you to recollect what you have learnt. However, if you stop reciting or revising, the neuron tract starts diminishing, making it difficult for you to recollect. Haven’t we seen shopkeepers (owners of mom-and-pop stores), who remember the exact prices of hundreds of different items in their shops? Do they have any memory technique? No, they remember the prices, because they are constantly repeating them, day in and day out, while dealing with customers. Yes, repetition is undoubtedly a fool-proof technique. It works because every time you recite or revise something, you are creating a pathway in your mind. The more you revise, the deeper the track becomes, giving you more time before you start forgetting again. A prolonged time gap between two consecutive revisions is a sure-shot recipe for forgetting.
I would like to end this chapter by giving you the last Golden Key: repetition. Personally, I am against mugging blindly and rote learning. However, when all other techniques fail and you have no other option left, you can conveniently use repetition. Steps for Repetition Select a small portion of what you want to learn and keep on reading it until your brain becomes familiar with it. Close your book and test yourself to see how much of the portion you remember. Open your book to check where you went wrong. After discovering your mistakes, close your book again and try to recollect. As a final test, write down what you have read on a blank piece of paper. If the written text matches correctly, that means you have remembered perfectly. Test Try to remember the following definition of force as defined in the physics dictionary. After you have finished your repetitions, you should be able to close your book and say the exact definition by heart. Force is that physical quantity which changes or tends to change the state of rest or of uniform motion of a body in a straight line. Repeat this sentence, very slowly, in your mind until you are familiar with it. Next, close your book to check how well you remember it. Congratulate yourself if you get it correct. Sometimes, the subject matter is small but is so complicated
that all techniques like the List System, Peg System or Conversion System prove futile. When every technique seems futile, you can rely on simple repetition.
Chapter 13 Remembering Skills On a recent trip to Japan, I was fortunate to witness an exciting karate match in Tokyo. A senior Samurai accepted the challenge to fight five amateurs all at once. I was doubtful whether the Samurai would be able to counter-attack the combined might of the five fighters, but when the battle began, I was stunned by what I saw! The lightning speed of the Samurai’s hand and leg movements was unbelievable. He countered every punch and kick from the five opponents within a split second, almost like a reflex action. Within a few minutes, all five were knocked out. This incident reminded me of the Hollywood movie, The Karate Kid (1984). In the movie, the protagonist, Daniel wants to learn karate. But instead of teaching him karate moves, the master makes him do household chores, such as waxing a car and painting the fence for hours and hours at a stretch. While Daniel is painting the fence, the master makes sure that his upward and downward hand movements in moving the brush are repeated thousands of times, until they automatically get stored in Daniel’s mind like a habit. So, when the actual fight scene occurs, Daniel is automatically able to move his hands up and down with such amazing speed that no one is able to attack his body. This is how martial arts students are trained worldwide. They are forced to perform a move repeatedly until it becomes a habit, a sort of reflex action. The mental thinking process is removed and the movements happen almost automatically. If you were to think and fight, this process of thinking and then taking action consumes time. Someone could punch you in the face by then. So, the movements must happen reflexively; only then can mastery be achieved.
Take a look at this diagram: The human mind has two parts: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind controls activities that you do voluntarily, such as reading, watching TV, playing on your smartphone, and so on. The subconscious mind, on the other hand, controls activities that you are not aware of, such as breathing, dreaming, blinking your eyes, or the functioning of your heart. All these processes take place in your body without you being aware of them. Now let us come to the more exciting part. Whenever you try to learn a new skill, it is first processed by your conscious brain. It takes the information, processes it and tries various ways to figure out how to tackle that particular skill. However, once it learns the skill, it sends a message to the subconscious mind: “Hey dude, I have figured out this skill for you. Now you take over and let me move on to other important things!” At that precise moment when your subconscious mind takes over the skill, the learning is complete. Let’s take a real-life situation. Think of the time when you were learning how to drive a car. Initially, you were nervous while holding the steering wheel. You had to drive the car very consciously, making sure not to steer too much to the left or the right and maintain a straight path. Shifting gears, pressing the clutch, accelerating and braking, all had to be done very consciously. In fact, while you
were driving, your conscious mind had to be so alert that you could not listen to music or talk on the phone at the same time. However, after a few days of practice, the conscious mind figured out exactly how driving is done. So, it passed the baton on to your subconscious mind, and then, your subconscious mind took charge. Now you can easily drive your car and simultaneously listen to music or talk on the phone. You do not have to be completely conscious; only a little bit of consciousness is needed (therefore, the word subconscious). The steering, gear shifting and leg movements happen with clockwork precision and you may not even be aware of it. It just happens by itself. The best guitarists in the world do not search for each chord and then play; they just play. The fastest typists do not search for each letter on the keyboard before typing; they just type. Now let me share one more secret with you. Psychology says that any skill that you perform repeatedly for a period of about 21 days becomes a part of your subconscious mind. The time period of 21 days is a rough estimate and may vary from skill to skill. However, it is generally the ideal time in which the conscious mind figures out a way to learn a new skill and then hands it over to your subconscious mind. The problem is that whenever we learn a new skill, we are very excited at the beginning. So, we practice it for a week. After that, however, the enthusiasm fizzles out and we discontinue the learning midway. This is precisely why you may have seen so many people who know a little bit of piano, a little bit of yoga, a little bit of skating or a little bit of wind-surfing, but the expertise is missing. The secret of mastering a new skill is to practice it for a continuous stretch of 21 days without taking any break. Half hearted, short-term attempts never work. Therefore, if you want to learn golf, select a particular shot and practice it for 21 days. If you want to learn the cover drive shot in cricket, practice the same shot for 21 days. Do not practice any other shot during this time; else, your mind will get confused. Once the cover drive becomes a habit, you can move to other