If I asked you to go grocery shopping without writing a list, how would you attempt to remember it? Let’s say you needed:

1. Chicken
2. Eggs
3. Milk
4. Ketchup
5. Laundry Detergent
6. Toothpaste
7. Bread
8. Mushrooms
9. Lettuce
10. Peas

Most people would use rote memorization, constantly repeating the list over and over until they thought they had it, painful stuff. Here’s a better way, which shows the power of visual memory.

First memorize these rhyming objects:

1 = Bun

2 = Shoe

3 = Tree

4 = Door

5 = Hive

6 = Sticks

7 = Heaven

8 = Gate

9 = Wine

10 = Pen

Now I’d like you to link, in as crazy way as possible, the 10 item-shopping list, to these new images representing the numbers from 1-10. I’ll start you off with the first three.

Bun to Chicken. See a gigantic Chicken sitting between the two halves of a hamburger bun, perhaps wearing the top half as a hat, see it pecking at the bottom half and the top half keeps falling off, so it keeps picking it up and placing it back on its head.

Shoe to Eggs. Imagine yourself cracking eggs into your favorite shoes. See yourself sliding your feet into your shoes and breaking the yolks. They spray out from your shoes covering the whole area with a thick yellow gooey mess.

Tree to Milk. Imagine tipping over a huge Oak tree with your hands, as it topples, gallons and gallons of Milk gush from the ground like an oil geyser. It’s a milk geyser. See yourself covered in dripping milk.

Okay, go ahead and do the same with the remaining list. Remember, the more ridiculous the image the better. Once you finish, see how many you can remember. Then come back.

So how did you do? If your images were crazy, you should not only have been able to remember all ten in order, but you should also be able to recall them out of order. If I say 3, what do you see? 3/Tree, uprooting the tree and the geyser of milk. How about 5, 8, 7? Easy isn’t it?

This is an easy demonstration of the power of visualization. The next time you go grocery shopping or go to write down a to-do list, try this method, your brain will thank you.

Bob’s book Right Brain Rapid Recall which covers this system (The Peg) in more depth is available here http://www.memoryedge.com/online-store/

Download my new app for remembering names  BOB’S APP

Funny, unique and interactive in his entertaining conference keynotes and workshops, Bob Gray reveals the untapped potential in each of us. His empowering systems and their many applications in the business world give participants immediate ‘walk away’ value. Book Bob Gray today as your next conference keynote speaker.

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This is actually the foundation on which every Guinness Memory record is achieved.

The second key is to form what you wish to remember into an image, something which stimulates the right side of our brain, the creative side. The third key is to then associate or link these two images together; the image of what you wish to remember, to the thing you already know, and here’s the key, the link must be as silly, as crazy and ridiculous as possible. This is critical, the crazier the image, the better the recall.

Just to show you how this works, let’s take five random things to remember:

Photo Album, Sarah Palin, a Cactus, Noah’s Ark and Gold Bars.

Now we will link them together in a crazy ridiculous scenario. Imagine:

Looking through an old photograph album, as you turn the page, Sarah Palin suddenly jumps out from the album, see her in as much detail as you can, perhaps her hair tied up, her rimless glasses, nice smile. She has her arms outstretched above her head and she is holding a huge cactus, as if she is pumping iron, only instead of holding weights above her head, she is holding a huge cactus. Perhaps the needles are pricking her hands. She can’t hold it any longer, it’s too painful, so she hurls it through the air and it lands on top of Noah’s Ark, try to hear the smashing and splintering sound of the wood as it crashes on top of the Ark. As the Ark cracks open see hundreds of shiny Gold Bars flying out from its hold.

Now go back to the image you had of the photograph album, close your eyes and recall the remaining four items.

Easy right? See how each linked item jumps out from your memory. I know it’s only five items but as you will learn in later posts it could just as easily be ten or twenty….as long as the associations linking the images are crazy ridiculous and nonsensical.

Oh, and by the way, you just memorized the first five US states alphabetically.

Album = Alabama
Sarah Palin = Alaska
Cactus = Arizona
Noah’s Ark = Arkansas
Gold Bars = California (Gold Rush)

On a more practical note the Chain or Link method can be used to recall speeches and presentations, to-do lists and shopping lists, and in conjunction with another memory system, even equations and formulas, in fact anything which needs to be recalled in a specific sequence. I will tackle these in later posts.

Maybe next time I will show you how to remember their capital cities. I just had a thought, perhaps to get you used to visualizing ridiculous images; we can memorize all 50 state capitals, that’s sure to win you a drink in a bar!

By the way, Papua looks like a camel, with a little imagination, and Sri Lanka looks like a tear drop.

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