What I Learned Today

I enjoy learning about ways to improve my memory, or even other people’s attempts to improve theirs, as in Moonwalking with Einstein. The method of loci (or memory palace) technique is pretty cool, and I used it to memorize some flying-related info. But you know, it took effort!

The other day, I was listening to Jim Kwik’s podcast, Kwik Brain. The tone of the podcast is a bit too self-promotional and get-rich-quick-y for my tastes, but the episodes are short and I can skip over the annoying parts and listen to the rest at 1.5x (sorry, Jim!). But the fact is, in a recent episode he managed to get me to memorize the first ten elements in the periodic table… without even trying! (Much?) And I can reel them off forwards or backwards! Even now, weeks later!

To do this, Jim created a colorful little story.

Imagine a fire hydrant. (The more vividly/crazily/ridiculously you imagine each item, the more it will stick!) Attached to it is a helium balloon. Then some batteries smack into the balloon. They were launched from a barrel. There’s a board leaning against the barrel. A diamond rolls down it! Into … Knight Rider! Which is stuck between two oxen. They have nasty teeth, so you brush the oxen teeth with toothpaste. Next to you is a huge neon sign in flashing colors.

Bizarre! But you’ll remember it. And then…

The fire hydrant = hydrogen.
The balloon = helium.
The batteries = lithium.
The barrel = beryllium.
The board = boron.
The diamond = carbon.
Knight Rider = nitrogen.
The oxen = oxygen.
The toothpaste = fluorine.
The sign = neon.

Not only do you remember this, but you can walk backwards through the little scenario, from neon sign through Knight Rider all the way back to the fire hydrant, and recite Ne – F – O – N – C – B – Be – Li – He – H! Effortless!

This seems so easy when someone already came up with the mnemonic associations. Now I just need to get better at creating them.

He also talked about using your body to anchor a list (e.g., of shopping items). So you imagine item 1 on the top of your head (e.g., milk pouring down your head), then item 2 on your nose (e.g., strawberries stuck up your nose), and so on with mouth, ears, shoulders, fingers, belly button, seat. Or as many places as you need. I tried this the other day and it also worked.

But just like the method of loci, I have to wonder how many times you can re-use the same memory palace (“memory body”?). Wouldn’t the previous set of associations bleed over and get mixed up? Do I need bread this week, or was that last week’s belly button item? Indeed, the advice I’ve seen is to not re-use memory palaces… which seems pretty limiting in terms of the number of things you can memorize this way (although advocates claim that we interact with so many physical locations that you should never really exhaust your options). But maybe don’t re-use your body. :)