THE ART OF MEMORY · LESSON 15 OF 30 · PART III: MEMORY IN DAILY LIFE

Market Day

One busy morning, five jobs for your memory, and every tool you have so far. Choose the right one each time.

Memory hook: a stallholder crosses a dawn market square, with a different memory tool glowing above each stall: a chain, a palace, a swan, a face, a tree, a card.

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In this lesson: you will use everything from the first three parts in one realistic day: a list, a number, a name, a talk and a map, choosing the right tool for each, and learn five habits that keep them working.
Where we left off
What are the five parts of a mind map's method? Give three.
Central image, main branches, key words, sub-branches, colour. Any three.
How do you turn a map into a palace?
A room for each main branch, and a place in the room for each sub-branch.
Why did Darwin's drawing help him?
It showed how ideas connect: which belong together, and which are main branches.

Market day in Valdera

Ines runs a stall at the Saturday market of a small town. This week, she is also in charge of the market's opening ceremony, because the person who usually does it has fallen ill. At six in the morning she stands in the empty square with a head full of things to do and no time to write them down.

There are twelve stalls and each of them needs something. There are the names of the three people from the town council who will arrive early. There is the stall number for the mayor's table, which is 27. There is the price of the cheese, 3.40, that she must tell her helper. And at eleven there is a two-minute welcome speech that she will have to give without notes, because her hands will be full of flowers.

What does Ines have to remember?
Names of three council members, a stall number (27), a price (3.40), a shopping list and a two-minute speech.
Talk about it. Which of these jobs would you find hardest, and which easiest? Why?

In the old days she would have panicked. This time she does something calm. She walks slowly down the middle of the square and decides, for each job, which tool fits.

The shopping list is only six things, and she needs it quickly: a story chain. The stall number and the price are digits: she turns 27 and 340 into two quick scenes. The three names are for the council members' faces, as they come in, so she will use a name picture on each feature. And the speech is a talk: five points, five places along the market's central avenue, from the fountain to the church.

How does Ines choose her tools?
She matches each job to a tool: a story chain for the list, scenes for the numbers, name pictures for the faces, and a route for the speech.
Talk about it. Which tool would you choose for each of the jobs? Do you agree with Ines?

By nine, the work is done and the market is open. The council members arrive and she greets each of them by name. The mayor gets table 27. The helper hears the price and writes nothing. At eleven she walks down the avenue in her head, from picture to picture, and speaks to the crowd with her hands full of flowers.

Nobody notices that she used any method at all. That is the best sign it is working. This lesson is your own Saturday market. It asks you to do five small jobs, in a mixed order, using what you learned in the first three parts. And it ends with five habits that keep it all alive.

What is the sign that a method is working?
Nobody notices it. It becomes part of how you act.
Talk about it. Tell a short story about a day when your memory let you down. Which tool would have helped?

Words worth knowing

Say what you think each one means, then open it.

a small open shop where things are sold, in a market.
a formal event, such as the opening of something.
to say hello to someone.
a group of people elected to run a town.
to be right for a job. Which tool fits?
something you do regularly without thinking.

Valdera and Ines are invented for this lesson.

Choose the tool, then keep it alive

You now have a toolkit. This lesson is about choosing, and about the five habits that make every tool work better.

The jobThe toolLesson
Ten or fewer things, in order, right nowBody pegs or a story chain3, 5
A list of many items, to keepA memory palace4
A short number or a yearShape, rhyme or Major System6, 7
A long numberDominic or PAO8, 9
A nameName picture + feature11
A pack of cardsFixed card pictures along a route12
A talkFive pictures in five places13
A subject with branchesMind map, then a palace14

Five habits

  1. Pay attention. Most forgetting is not paying attention in the first place. Look, listen, repeat the name.
  2. Make a picture. Make it strange, moving and loud. Use two or three tools from the checklist.
  3. Give it a place. On a peg, in a room, in a chain. A picture with no place gets lost.
  4. Keep it organised. Fixed routes, fixed lists, fixed codes. Order is half the memory.
  5. Review it. Soon, then a little later, then later still.
attend, picture,
place, order, review.

The common mistakes

  • Reading instead of picturing. If you are not seeing, you are not encoding.
  • Pictures that are too tame. A calm picture is a forgettable picture.
  • Changing the route. The route must not change.
  • Learning and never reviewing. The curve is real: a first review the next day does most of the work.
  • Using the biggest tool for the smallest job. A short list does not need a palace.
Say it aloud. Say the five habits aloud and give one example of each from your own day.

Now you build

Have a go before you open any answer. A rough attempt teaches you more than a perfect model you only read.

The shopping list

Make one linked story for the list cheese, lemons, bread, flowers, honey, olives.
A giant block of cheese rolls into a crate of lemons, which fly up and bake a loaf of bread. The bread is being delivered by a bunch of flowers on a bicycle, which spills honey over the street. A herd of olives slides along in the honey.

Two numbers

Encode the stall number 27 and the price 3.40 (340). Use the Major System: 27 = n + k, 34 = m + r, 0 = s. Write both scenes.
27 = NECK or NOOK: a giraffe's neck with a sign saying 27. 340 = MARRY + S or MORES: a bride and groom are married in a heap of cheese rinds. Choose your own words as long as the sounds are right.

Three names

Maria (red scarf), Tomas (a very tall hat) and Elena (a gold necklace). Make a name picture and join it to each feature.
Maria: a marriage! A bride is wrapped tightly in her red scarf. Tomas: a tomato wearing a tall hat. Elena: an elephant with a gold necklace round its trunk.

The two-minute speech

Plan a welcome speech in five points (greeting, history of the market, thanks, today, close). Give each a picture and place it along an avenue you know.
1 greeting: a giant hand waves from the fountain. 2 history: a stone cart with a wheel as big as a house outside the bank. 3 thanks: a huge basket of letters on the bench. 4 today: a clock with a smiling face on the church. 5 close: a bell-ringing flock of doves.

Tool for the job

Match each job to the best tool.
Ten things in order, now
A year for an exam
A 100-item list for the year
Someone's name and face
A ten-minute talk
Which habit does a forgetting curve show to be most important?

Tell the market day

Tell the story of Ines's market day aloud, naming each job and the tool she used.
1:30

Drill

Flash cards

Say the answer first, then tap the card.

tap to turn over

Quick quiz

Which tool is best for six things you need in a few minutes?
Which is the common mistake?
How do you remember a name?
What should you do with the route of a palace?

The memory challenge

Memory challenge: the market-day list

Eight things from Ines's morning: three names, a stall number, a price and three goods. Type them back in any order.

Choose the right tool for each: name pictures for the three, major words for the two numbers, a chain for the goods.

0:00

The list has gone. Type what you remember, one item per line.

Look back

These reach back to earlier rooms. Answer in your head or out loud, then check.

Lesson 14 · Drawing Your Thinking. What goes on the lines of a mind map?
One key word each.
Lesson 13 · Speaking Without Notes. What is the fourth canon of rhetoric?
Memory.
Lesson 12 · A Pack of Cards. What does a champion do to learn a pack faster than 52 pictures?
Take two or three cards at a time as a person-action-object scene.
Lesson 11 · Names and Faces. What are the five steps for a name?
Hear, say, find a feature, picture the name, join them.

What I can do now

A thought to keep

Which of the five habits do you most often skip? What small change would fix it?

Saved on this device as you type.

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