MEMORYYOUR MENTAL FILING SYSTEM

You forget names and faces, facts and figures, simply because you never really has to remember
them. You would be surprised at your powers of recollection if your career depended on it.

Dr Salo Finkelstein, Polish mathematical performer, was once asked by a broadcasting company to
tally the returns of a US presidential election because he was faster than an adding machine. e did it
in !.!" seconds.

People have different types of mind. Some remember pictorial images, others recall sounds, others
learn by the #feel$ of words. %ost have some share of each type of ability, although one faculty usually
predominates.

&o matter what type of mind you have, there are some general rules that will help you in training your
memory.

'n memorising, tackle a thing as a whole. 'n learning a poem, you might imagine it would be easier to
memorise couple of stan(as at a time. )ead the poem right through from start to finish, many times as
necessary, and you will learn it in connected form.

Don*t try too hard. 't produces mental tension. +ver,trying slows down the
memory.

-very time you remark that you have a memory like a sieve, you are knocking one more hole through
its bottom.

Shun artificial aids such as associating disparate elements. .his puts your mind to unnecessary
labour in handling two kinds of material that have no natural relation to each other.

't is possible to recogni(e familiar pattern in figures themselves. .his was the secret of Dr
Finkelstein*s wi(ardry. e viewed a long number as a string of smaller, three,digit figures.

.he best time to memori(e a thing is /ust before you go to sleep. 0edtime
memorisers score consistently 12 to "2 per cent higher than those memorising at other hours. .he
material sinks in most effectively then.

You must keep the memory traces fresh if you wish to recall easily. .his needs fre3uent revision. .he
more you can reiterate the matter you want to recall, the more efficiently you will do it.

&ew information has to be associated with what you already know. )ecall is then easy. .his may be
compared to a bicycle chain. -ach link brings along the one behind it provided the connection is there.

'n the dark recesses of the mind are filled literally billions of information bits. -ach time you dip back
into the past you are activating this most remarkable of faculties.

You have a prodigious memory. 'n a few cubic inches your brain stores much more information than
can be stored in a large computer installation costing millions. Further, it can do things that would
stump any present,day computer4 remember how burning leaves smell, or how a chocolate ice,cream
tastes.

+ne researcher calculates the brain*s storage capacity at one 3uadrillion bits of information5that*s a
million times a billion. 6ith such capacity, says arvard*s 7ohn %erritt, #&o one has ever filled the
pitcher to overflowing.$

%emory works in 3ueer ways. Some people have e8traordinary retrieval powers. 9 few individuals
can look at something and have total recall of minute details.

9 friend of Professor 6illiam 7ames was introduced to a :olonel in the 0ritish army. Presently the
men were chatting about the signs of age, at which the colonel challenged anyone to say how old he
was. .he professor*s friend astonished both the :olonel and others present by giving the correct date
of his birth.

e later revealed that one day he had picked up a copy of the 9rmy ;ist and while turning over the
pages had unconsciously memorised the birth dates and various particulars. 6hen he was introduced
to the :olonel all the particulars he had read about him rose into his mind without any conscious
bidding.

7ames %acintosh, a well,known writer and politician, claimed that he could remember all the facts
coming to his attention in the course of a long and busy career and most of what he had read.

e could identify even obscure 3uotations. e could repeat not only the passage correctly but say on
which page it would be found.

a(litt said of this man< #.here is scarce an author that he has not read=.'f an opinion in an abstruse
metaphysical author is referred to, he is probably able to repeat the passage by heart, can tell the side
of the page on which it is to be met with, can trace it back=.and thus give you in a few minutes
space, and without any effort of previous notice, a chronological table of the progress of the human
mind in that particular branch of in3uiry$.

't was said of 0onar ;aw that he never prepared speeches or spoke from notes, yet once, while
Secretary of State for :olonies, he delivered the annual statement of his department*s work, a very
lengthy speech, with many figures, without a single note.

)obert 0rowning had only to read a book once to be able to 3uote entire pages fluently and easily. 't
is also related that 0en 7ohnson could recite long books by heart. 7onathan Swift, when three, could
read most of the different passages in the 0ible. e also repeated easily from memory what he had
read.

Sir 6illiam )obertson &icoll, for many years editor of .he 0ritish 6eekly, read on an average two
books a day, which he claimed to master at the rate of !2,222 words an hour.

&icoll*s memory and mental grasp were remarkably sure, for in a few seconds he had mastered even
the most difficult paragraphs. 'n addition to such mental activity he wrote between "2,222 and !2,222
words a week and maintained complete control of his paper.

e was born and reared in a Scottish manse containing over >?,222 books, which overflowed from
the rooms into the passages and down the staircase. 'n his own library he had over 1@,222 books and
could put his hand on any book he wanted and turn up any 3uotation with no delay.

:lement Shorter said< #e could read a page while ' read a sentence.$ 9nd Sir 7ames 0arrier, #&o
pocket could have contained all the books he needed for the shortest /ourney.$

'n protracted travelling he gra,dually left his clothing behind him as more and more books crowded it
out of his valises. e was so fond of books that ' am sure he never saw a lonely one without wanting
to pat it and give it si8 pence. ' should say that he read thousands of them every year of his life, and
as 3uickly as you or ' may gather black berries.

't was said of Professor )ichard Porson, a famous :ambridge authority on Areece, that he
remembered substantially the hundreds of scholarly books he had read in the course of a busy
lifetime.

e was one of the few men of his time who knew by heart every ancient Areek writer so well that he
could tell the position of a 3uoted line in the copy of the work concerned in his library.

Dr Samuel :larke, a famous divine, always took a book with him and claimed that he remembered all
that he had read.

.he mind often takes impression with the accuracy of a camera and reproduces them as readily.
%acauly, the historian, was fond of demonstrating this feature of the mind*s activities. e would read
rapidly several pages of print, close the book and repeat what he had read word perfect.