Remembering Numbers Instantly

REMEMBER FAST

• F: forget—what you already know about numbers, consider any bad habits you want to drop. Think about why you want to master numbers and how it could impact you.
• A: active—be active in your learning, be here and present with me for the duration of this podcast. Take notes and ask me questions.
• S: state—manage your state! Manage your physiology by looking after your body, take breaks and drink water. Manage your psychology and be genuinely curious about how to master numbers.
• T: teach—learn as though you are about to teach the material to someone else. By teaching another you’ll be learning the information twice and making it yours.

ABOUT MEMORISING NUMBERS

• Numbers are difficult to remember because they are abstract.
• We can only really hold 5-9 numbers in our working memory (George Miller’s 7 plus or minus 2 study from 1956).
• Can apply some of the techniques I’ll list today to remembering other things in your life.

ASSOCIATION

• All learning is simply associating something you don’t know with something you do.
• You have to connect a meaning with the new information you’re learning.
• In learning we’re always putting together two bits of information: e.g. a feeling with a song.
• A piece of information becomes more memorable for you if there is a meaning attached to it for you e.g. a date becoming meaningful because it is the birthday of someone you love, connecting two numbers with jersey numbers of your  favorite sports players.

CROSS STICKS TECHNIQUE

• This technique is about making the number less abstract and therefore easier to remember, which we do by turning the numbers you want to remember into words.
• We can start by assigning a letter to each digit you want to remember – e.g.1=a, 2=b, 3=c, 4=d.
• Now, using 0863 as an example: this would equal the letters jhfc.
• Now take this letter sequence, and, using the letters as the first letters of words of your choosing, make a sentence out of it—be creative! E.g. John has fun cash.
• The phrase is more easily remembered and can be a helpful prompt for you to go back and remember the original letters and numbers you wanted to remember.

NUMBER RHYME / NUMBER PICTURE METHOD

• Number picture method: “lookalikes”, instead of associating a letter, create a picture to match to each number.
• E.g. what does a number one look like to you? A number seven? 2 could look like a swan, 3 like a heart.
• This is especially effective if you tend to have a more visual brain.
• Number rhyming: “sound-alikes”, make up rhymes that sound like the numbers you’re trying to remember – e.g. 2 shoes, 3 trees, 4 door.

ALPHANUMERIC SYSTEM

• Instead of associating letters with each number, we associate sounds.
• This is known as the most popular method: geniuses throughout history are said to have used this technique.
• Based on a system in which ten digits are each associated with a sound of the English language – e.g.1=ta, da, tha, 2=na, 3=ma, 4=ra, 5= la, 6=sh, ja, g, 7=k, c(hard), or g(hard), 8=v, f, or ph, 9=b or p, 0= z, s, or c.
• To memorize long numbers you can create stories and pictures, adding in consonants where you like as they have no value – e.g. 3=ma, add in a y to make it “my”.
• These sounds are then connected together to make words and sentences to remember longer sequences of numbers.

LOCATION METHOD

• For complex memorizations, pictures can be placed in specific locations around the home.
• Then by walking around or visualizing the locations within the home, the images can be translated back into numbers using the alphanumeric system.
• Once you get the hang of this system, possibilities open up: you can start translating all the numbers you see around you into pictures and into the alphanumeric system.