The 1st MIND activity day of 2018 is a practice aid for memorizing item lists in order. If you chose MIND for 1st WEAKER LINK activity, then you tried seeing how far you could memorize a series of random playing cards. This activity will help strengthen this skill, and help in memorizing lists altogether, in a relatively easy method to understand, but will take practice. First off, let’s test your initial best effort to memorize a grocery list of 20 items. Take 2min to look over this list, and then looking away, try writing down as many of these items as you can in the same order, or as many items as possible if needed.

So let’s give this a try:

1. Dish soap
2. Bread
3. Beef
4. Bagels
5. Coffee
6. Paper Towels
7. Elephant Clove Garlic
8. Milk
9. Tin Foil
10. Bacon
11. Lemon
12. Eggs
13. Cheese
14. Chicken
15. Ice Cream
16. Celery
17. Tomatoes
18. Soda
19. Cereal
20. Apples

Okay, now write these items down… Look back and check how you did…

Now, let’s try working with the Linking Method (article attached) simply memorizing a pair of items, 1st item interacting with the 2nd item, using as many senses to imagine the items interacting.

Here are the guidelines to help with Linking Method:

• Memorize items in pairs (no more, no less)
• Memorize the 1st item by Linking it with a related category image (e.g. your preferred grocery store’s shopping cart if memorizing your grocery list)
• Separately memorize each pair in this manner [1st Item interacts w/ 2nd item], [2nd item interacts w/ 3rd item] and so on until your list is complete. Don’t let the previous item be memorized with your next group, as this may make you forget the order (e.g. don’e interact 1st item w/ 2nd & 3rd item). These pairs will begin to almost turn into a quick movie in your head as the imagery unfolds.
• Try incorporating as strong of imagery and other senses as you can for items to strengthen the memory. A trick is thinking of objects in a strange, unproportional, etc., way. The mind tends to remember oddball things/events (as I’m sure you can recall some strange fact you’ve heard only once, but couldn’t recall a capital of a state you don’t live it that you memorized in grade school)
• If two items are similar or naturally relate to each other, but need to memorize separately, try changing an item to something strange. (e.g. Golf Club & Golf Ball – think of the golf club look like a playing card club smashing into a golf ball the size of a beach ball, etc).

That’s the basics in a nutshell. Please take a look at the Linking Method article I read from for further details.

So let’s give this a try, as the earlier example, let’s imagine words for a grocery list:

(ITEMS BELOW ARE REARRANGED FROM ORIGINAL LIST ABOVE TO MAKE SURE THE PREVIOUS MEMORIZING TEST DOESN’T OVERLAP THIS TEST)

Briefly glance over the below list but don’t try memorizing it, then move on to the paragraph and story that follows it.

1. Elephant Clove Garlic
2. Tomatoes
3. Lemon
4. Eggs
5. Cheese
6. Dish soap
7. Tin Foil
8. Ice Cream
9. Apples
10. Bagels
11. Coffee
12. Celery
13. Bread
14. Milk
15. Beef
16. Soda
17. Paper Towels
18. Cereal
19. Bacon
20. Chicken

Now, with a real grocery list you may want to reorganize the items first based on how you would find them in the store to help be more efficient while shopping so you’re not bouncing around the store. However, in this example we’ll leave it jumbled up. Remember to associate the first item on the list with your decided subject or category item attached to your 1st item (otherwise you may forget the 1st item and have trouble remembering the following items).

• You’re riding in a shopping cart following an elephant
• When the Elephant turns around and looks at you with it’s head made out of Garlic
• As it comes chasing after you, a piece of garlic falls and you see it has Tomatoes instead of feet
• One of the tomato feet is kicked off at you and you catch it, when you go to toss it, you find it has a Lemon inside
• As you toss the lemon down, it cracks open and a dozen Eggs go rolling down the hill
• These eggs break open and form into a giant piece of Cheese that now comes after you
• Reaching in your pocket you squirt Dish soap on the ground causing the cheese monster to slip
• With the dish soap as a weapon, you make a shield out of Tin Foil
• Just after you make your tin foil shield, a big monster Ice Cream container screams at you
• The monster ice cream container begins throwing Apples at you
• Dodging the apples, you tuck behind a large rock made of Bagels
• But through the bagel hole Coffee comes pouring out like a river
• The coffee river is near a large Celery tree where you break a piece off and ride it like a canoe down the river
• The celery canoe comes to a beach of Bread
• As you walk along the loaf of bread, cold Milk begins to ooze out
• Each time you step on the milk, you hear cows in the distance mooing “Beef”
• The beef sounds in the near distance becomes silent as an avalanche of Soda cans come crashing down the hill toward you
• As the soda crashes down the hill spraying everywhere, a hundred flying birds made of Paper Towels sheets come flying overhead
• The paper towel birds swoop down into a field full of Cereal to eat
• The cereal is farmed by farmers in the field wearing a Bacon strips cowboy hat
• Each bacon hat also has a Chicken nesting in it

Now re-read the above store one more time, then looking away, try running through the story in your head and write down the items as they come to life in the story. Once completed, check to see how many items you remembered this time around.

That’s just one example, the possibilities are endless how you want, and you can just add new items to the end continuing the “story”. Obviously, this is a highly unrealistic situation, and that’s why this works normally. It may take you a while to get the hang of this, and the Linking Method is far from being the only method to aid memory. As we continue, I’ll be posting other methods you may like more.

As for the memorizing playing cards, what I’ve heard of about those really amazing at this, instead of memorizing the playing cards as they appear in card form, they associate each card in the 52 card deck with an item or a person, this greatly helps building a “story”.

(Sorry, post is a day late, forgot my laptop charger at work 🙁 had to drive back once I had an opportunity)

Until next time, keep LivingLife, and take care of yourself and those you love!

Have comments/questions? Please feel free to email me at my2cents@livinglife-blog.com

“Remember, I’m NOT a qualified doctor, trainer, physiologist, philosopher, or have any other certified qualification. I’m only someone who’s passionate to learn & develop personal skills, habits, goals & finding a balance life-style, while sharing my journey through experiences.

– Developer of LivingLife-Blog”