You can lose your diary. You can lose your phone. You cannot lose your own body. That is why I like the skeleton files in Memory Power. They are ten places to store information, and they go wherever you go.
The ten skeleton files
A file is just a place to keep something. Anything can be a file system if it follows a logical order and you can see it in your mind. Even your car can be one. But your body is the best, and in this system you must call the files exactly what I call them.
- One is the top of your head.
- Two is your nose. Pat it as you say number two.
- Three is your mouth. Touch it and say mouth.
- Four is your ribs.
- Five is your liver.
- Six is your hip joint. We call it joint.
- Seven is cap, which is the knee cap.
- Eight is the fibula, a bone in your lower leg.
- Nine is the ball of your foot.
- Ten is not on your skeleton. We call it sand.
Say them aloud while touching each place. Do it until you can say the number and the file without thinking.
Filing a thing
To remember ten things, turn each into a picture. Then put the first picture on the top of your head, the second on your nose, and so on. See it clearly. Move through your body from head to foot.
The book's own test uses ten items filed on the body, and then recalled forwards, backwards and by number. If you can do that, you already know more than most people.
If you need more than ten places, the book gives fifteen body parts in order. Hair, head, forehead, eyebrow, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, cheeks, chin, neck, chest, hands, stomach and legs. First become comfortable with them in order. Then join your objects to them one by one.
Use one: a to-do list that does not fall off
Remembering things you have to do is harder than remembering things that have happened. The reason is that there is no cue. Nothing reminds you. That is why we need notes, alarms and calendars.
Now use your files. Say you have five things to do today. Start at number one, the top of your head, and file the first task as a picture. Then someone calls in the afternoon and says, "Don't forget to call Tom." Your picture for Tom is a tom cat. File it on the next open file.
When you finish a task, change the picture. Set it on fire. Throw water on it. Or put a big red tick across it. Now you know which files are done.
Use two: directions on the road
You stop and ask someone for directions. They say, "Go to MG Road, take a left, go two stop signs and take a right, then go to King Street and take a left." You thank them and drive away. Three minutes later you remember nothing.
The reason is that left and right are abstract. So turn them into pictures. Every right is red in colour. Every left is full of leaves. A U turn is an umbrella.
Now file the directions.
- MG Road and a left. See Mahatma Gandhi covered with leaves, on file one.
- Two stop signs and a right. See two stop signs painted red, on file two.
- King Street and a left. See a king's crown with leaves, on file three.
- Hanuman Mandir and a U turn. See Lord Hanuman standing under an umbrella, on file four.
You did nothing more than turn abstract words into pictures. This is the point of every method in my book.
Practise this week
Do it for a single day. File every small task into your body, and use the red and leaves code on your next drive or walk. Your family will ask what you are doing with your hands. Tell them it is memory.
This is one idea from my book Memory Power.
