Imagine our memory would be so poor when we finally became old enough to pass on knowledge from one generation to the next.

We wouldn’t be here today if the elders had not remembered a few important things.

Before the invention of scripture, memory artists were the equivalent of today’s quarterbacks. King Cyrus of Persia was known for knowing all the names of his soldiers, and Socrates mocked writing for making people forgetful.

The History Of Declining Memory

Anything that was written before 200 BC had no punctuation; all texts were just word strings. If you didn’t already know what you were reading, it was useless.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and it was all downhill from there.

Once we could store information externally, physically store it anywhere in our house and access it at any time, the need to remember things significantly declined.

This tendency has continued ever since, and taken a major turn for the worse with the invention of smartphones and the globally available internet.

Memory Isn’t Fixed

However, just because our memory sucks now doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. We know that the average number of list items we can store in our short-term memory is seven, though that can be increased with practice.

Through repetition, practice and becoming an expert in certain fields, you can increase your capacity to remember things.

How To Recall Better: Chunking

Chunking simply means dividing one string of information into several.

Can you remember 1117200112241999 just by looking at it once? Most people can’t, but we can remember 2 dates in a row: 11/17/2001 and 12/24/1999.

By creating 2 chunks of differently formatted information, memorising a string of seemingly random numbers becomes easy.

If you now put these dates into context, it’ll be even easier: for example, 11/17/2001 was your friend’s 11th birthday, and the second date was Christmas 1999.

How To Recall Better: The Memory Palace Technique

The memory palace is a technique where you walk along a route you know well, and put memories in certain locations along the way.

For example, you could go through your childhood home and place the items from your shopping list on the kitchen table. Then, when you’re in the grocery store, all you have to do is mentally enter the kitchen and see what’s there.

Once you see tomatoes, onions and potatoes on the table, you know what to shop for. You can even have multiple routes for different kinds of memories.

The Memory Palace In Detail

Before the invention of writing or electronics, people used to keep palaces devoted to memory. Not physical palaces, but mental ones!

• Think of a place you know well… a childhood home, perhaps, or where you live now.
• Imagine walking up to that place and putting the first object to remember right on the front porch.
• Then, step inside, and turn to your left. What do you see? Put the second object there and so on.

The items would be remembered when you mentally visit the place after a while.

How To Recall Better: The Major System

The major system allows you to convert numbers into sounds and thus words, thereby making them memorable. Each number key corresponds to a certain kind of consonant, and vowels and some other sounds are unassigned. 1 is T or D. 2 is N.

The Major System is based not around letters but sounds, so “enough” and “knife” would both code for 28. “Knife” would probably be easier to remember visually, though. No matter what letter you choose, each number corresponds to essentially the same position for your mouth.

Final Thoughts

Memory, indeed one of the most intellectual skills, is not fixed. Anyone, by using the right techniques and practising, can expand their mnemonic capacity beyond what many people would even think possible, an excellent party trick, or simply a useful tool to remember phone and credit card numbers.

Practice even more, and you might even be able to compete against others at national or world championships.