Anthony Metivier's Blog, page 31

Joanna Jast On How To Hack Your Habits

[image error]Remember Joanna Jast and all those tips she gave you on how to improve focus and concentration while you work on memory improvement?

Good news.

Joanna’s back with a new book called Hack Your Habits and in this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, we’ve got her here to talk about it.

As always, I’ve got the interview transcript for you below and would love to hear your comments and questions in the discussion area below. Enjoy!

 

Why You Don’t Have To Have It All Mapped Out

To Get A Handle On Your Habits

 

Anthony: You go into your personal story in the introduction. Why do you think you faced so many challenges and what was the turning point?

Joanna Jast: It’s interesting you’re asking me this question. I actually thought about it the other day on my way to work. And – I don’t really have the answer. I suppose it’s the combination of many factors: my temperament – which is like emotional and behavioural building blocks for personality and to large extend is hardwired, inborn, so my temperament, my upbringing, the environment I grew up in, the challenges I faced in life and the solutions to those challenges I chose to follow etc.

I haven’t got it all ‘mapped out’, but I think the key reasons why I’ve faced so many difficulties is my low threshold for boredom, poor ability to delay gratification, my self-compassion, which drives many of my willpower failures with: ‘But you deserve it, Joanna… you’ve had such a bad day’.

The turning points? There have been quite a few. But if I was to choose the key turning points that led me to create my own system for building better habits, it would be the following three:

The first one the day when my study routine was born. It was actually accidental – I wrote about it in my book Laser-Sharp Focus. It was the moment when I decided to stop trying to study in the evening, sitting on the sofa or on the bed and start doing it in the morning, at my desk.

To cut a long story short, I suddenly realised not only how much more productive and effective my study sessions became, but also how much happier I became – with better grades, more energy and time to do other things in life.

Now, 20 years later, looking back at what happened, I realise that back then I created a study routine, which over the years became my productivity and now writing routine that has transformed my life. My study routine happened to be one on those keystone habits – habits that create a ripple effect throughout our life, creating space and energy for more healthy habits to emerge and grow stronger, ultimately transforming our lives.

 

How The Secrets Of Behavioral Economics

Can Improve Your Life

 

The second turning point was the day when I heard about Behavioural Economics for the first time. It was during a lecture on marketing. I went home, did more research, read books, articles, did a course and… fall in love with the approach. I thought this could be something that would work for me. So I started experimenting with various behavioural economics strategies. Initially, I applied them to sort out my finances – so paid off my debts and started saving money. Then, I started experimenting with my exercise routine and eating habits.

And the third pivotal point was, when I refined my exercise routine, my running routine to incorporate all the lessons I’d learnt about human nature and my own difficulties in forming habits, and particularly – my previous failures in establishing a reliable exercise routine. I used many of the behavioural economics strategies I’d learn about when doing it. And now I’ve got a running routine, where I run 3 times per week, whether I feel motivated or not (and at least once a week I don’t feel motivated at all), whether is raining, or 100% humidity, or my foot is sore. I just do it.

 

The Truth About Your Age And Your Habits

 

Anthony: Is the problem of habits age specific? Does it apply to all ages equally?

Joanna Jast: I don’t know, really. I think this is a problem of our times though – so this modern age. We become more aware of the role and the impact of habits, good and bad, on our health, happiness, success, on our lives, and also we realise that motivation and willpower have limits. And that’s why we think about our habits more, we become interested in strategies for improving them.

You can say that ‘habits are in fashion these days’. And it’s nothing negative – on the contrary. I’m very happy to see that many people are turning away from relying on unreliable motivational strategies towards using more practical approaches to transforming their lives.

So it’s not only scientists, or health and fitness fanatics who are exploring habits. Many people, of all ages, are seeking better understanding of habits, and their own habits in particular, to improve their health, happiness, wealth, relationships and many other aspects of their personal and professional lives.

Anthony: Talk about putting systems on autopilot. It sounds too good to be true. What does “autopilot” mean and how can a person get started?

Joanna Jast: Putting a system on autopilot is about creating a system that makes you perform certain behaviour, or a sequence of behaviours without thinking much about it, without putting much energy into it. It’s like getting up in the morning and washing your face or brushing your teeth.

Most of us do it automatically, without thinking: Oh, geeesh, first, I need to wash my face, then, I need to brush my teeth, and then – I comb my hair. These are things that most healthy adults would do automatically every morning. These are habitual behaviours – well engrained in our brains, within the neural pathways.

For me putting a system, say an exercise routine, on autopilot is about creating a system that kicks in as if with a push of a button, and makes you go out and run three times per week, rain or shine, whatever your motivation level, or the mood of the day.

 

How To Harvest The Power

Of Your Desired Outcome

 

Anthony: How can you get started?

Joanna Jast: I suggest you start with the end result in mind. Start with what you want to achieve. You need to understand what problem you are trying to solve, but more importantly, what you are trying to achieve.

I like the concept of Desired Outcome, which I’ve borrowed from user experience design field. Desired Outcome is what we really want. Not what we think we want. Not what other people are telling us we should want. But what we’re really really want.

In my new book, Hack Your Habits, I write about my own struggle to cut down on my carbohydrate intake. I’ve got a sweet tooth and sadly, also use sweets as a reward and a way to boost my ‘motivation’ or willpower to carry on with tasks I don’t really want to do, tasks that are too difficult, too complex, etc. There was a time I was eating a lot of sweets. I was going through a stressful time personally and professionally, and this was my way of dealing with stress. So I wanted to cut down on my carbs.

So initially, I thought about this task as a cutting on my carbs task, a diet-changing task. I was all motivated to do that, and all. But it didn’t work.

So I looked at the whole issue again and really wanted to zoom in on what I cared about. And don’t get me wrong, I do care about my health, but the instant gratification monkey that lives in my brain always tells me that I can start again tomorrow, and now – I can have that biscuit.

So I had to start with the Desired Outcome. Yes, I wanted to eat less carbs, but what I really wanted out of it was to be able to resist sweets and toast with jam.

So I reframed my goal, taking into consideration my personality, my temperament, my weaknesses and strengths. I’ve got a competitive streak, I’m an achievement junkie, and I get excited with new ideas and testing them. So this ended up as an exercise in self-control and I did really well.

 

2 Of The Most Powerful Questions You’ll Ever Ask Yourself

 

So the Desired Outcome is where you need to start. What do you want out of it? Do you really care about it? And it has to be something you really care about, you care about. If you don’t care about it truly and deeply, it won’t really happen.

Anthony: You talk about getting the diagnosis right when tackling a problem. What does this mean and how does one get started?

Joanna Jast: I really like this quote from Albert Einstein:

’If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute solving it’.

And I would do the same.

If you’re trying and trying and trying to solve a problem, say of your unhealthy diet, or an unproductive study routine, and you’re constantly failing, it may be that you’re using an ineffective strategy, but it may also be that you’re trying to solve the wrong problem.

In medicine, getting the diagnosis right is crucial to an effective treatment plan. And getting it wrong can really result in people dying. This is not as serious as that with habits, but in the end, if you don’t understand, if you don’t define your problem correctly, you can waste a lot of time, energy, and even money on trying to fix something that is not the reason for your struggles.

Let me reiterate it: the better you understand what’s wrong, what’s not working, the more targeted your solutions, your treatment will be.

How to go about diagnosing your problem? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as doing an X-ray or a blood test, but it is doable.

Start with self-reflection, and be honest with yourself.

For me there are two major components to understand any problem you have: you – how you operate, your personality, motivation, strengths and weaknesses and your context.

The context is the external environment, your internal environment and your social environment. And they all come with their own limitations – what’s possible and constraints – what’s appropriate.

 

Why It’s Never Mind Over Matter

 

And it’s important to include that context -your physical environment, and your social environment as well. The power of those external systems that force us into behaving in certain ways is really undermined by many people. We think it’s all mind over matter – but if your physical environment or social context, is not conducing to exercising, or a healthier diet – it makes the change much, much more difficult. So don’t underestimate that.

And once you’ve got a good understanding how you and your problem or your habits goals sit within you and your context, you are in a good position to start tackling it.

So self-reflection if used with a healthy dose of honesty, is a great tool for discovering, diagnosing your problem. You can ask other people for their opinion what they think is not working for you. But then, they will be biased and what’s more important – they may not have access to some of your hidden motivations, or aspects of your personality or life you don’t share with others.

 

How To Get Started Fixing Persistent Problems

 

To get a really good grip on what’s wrong when fixing persisting problems, I ask myself two questions:

The first question is: What is this for? What is this doing for me? What purpose does it serve? What need does it meet? And this works really well with habits, because every habit serves a purpose. And most bad habits, such as overeating, procrastination, or shouting at your kids usually either helps either deal with boredom or with stress.

And the other questions I ask myself is: why have I failed at addressing it so far?

And once you’ve got it figured out, it will fall into those categories I’ve just talked about – you and your context. It should give you a better understanding of what it is and why you’re struggling to address it. And from this point, finding the best solution is quite straightforward really.

 

Exactly When You Should Run From

S.M.A.R.T. Goals Kicking And Screaming

 

Anthony: Talk about SMART goals. What’s your major concern with this popular approach to goal setting?

Joanna Jast: The SMART goal setting framework is very popular, and it does work for most things, but in my opinion it does not work for habit goals, and for a number of reasons.

First of all, let’s look at the last letter of this acronym: T – time-bound. Setting a habit-based goal with a deadline for achieving it is not a good strategy. Why? Because habits take as much time as they take to develop. Some of it is in your control, but let’s not forget we’re talking about creating or rearranging neural pathways in your brain. That takes time to shift.

Studies shows that habit formation depends on many factors, and most importantly on the person working on it – their motivation, personality, their context, as well as on the complexity of the habit itself. A simple habit can take a few days to develop, a more complex one, such as exercise – up to several months.

So if you give yourself a deadline for your habit goal, you may be bitterly disappointed if you don’t achieve it before it. That’s just setting yourself up to fail. So when setting habit based goals, don’t give yourself a deadline, but rather create a schedule for your new routine.

Then, there is the matter of measurability , so the letter M- how do you measure your success in a achieving your habit. In my opinion, it’s important to look at it carefully and measure what you want to achieve. And my advice is to link it with your desired outcome.

So if you, like me, testing your ability to resist marshmallows, you measure your ability to resist marshmallows, not the side effect, the healthy eating side effect of it, or weight loss. When I’m building a new habit, I’m not interested in performance measures – I don’t care how far or how fast I run (I try not to at least), but I’m focused on getting it done every time I’m supposed to do it. So practice is more important than performance when working on developing a new habit, and we should measure accordingly.

 

Why You Need To Be Realistic With Your Habits

 

And there are two more aspects of the SMART framework I have an issue with it’s the A and R – achievable and realistic.

Call me cynical, call me a party pooper but I am not a big fan of being aspirational when setting your habit goals. It’s great to feel inspired and motivated to achieve greater things in life, but in the end the reality of my life is what It is, and no matter how hard I try to refrain from eating sweets by the sheer power of my willpower and my desire to be slim and beautiful, it’s going to collapse on day 3 or 4. That’s what the 30 years of my experience in doing it tells me.

So being realistic and setting habit goals that are achievable again refer to you and your context – your personality, your motivation, your inner world, your physical environment, your social environment and all these things that affect us with all their limitations and constraints.

Anthony: You mentioned two kinds of environment, internal and external. What are these and why is understanding the difference important?

Joanna Jast: The difference isn’t really that important. I just like having things organised in my head. I also like to make that distinction because it makes it easier to you look for solutions later on. And that’s how I look at difficulties in addressing habit problems. It’s again the same thing: the better you understand where your challenges come from, the easier it will be to find a solution to your problem. So we’re back to the importance of correctly diagnosing the problem.

Your external environment is what surrounds you – your physical environment, your house, workplace, the gym you go to, the supermarket where you shop; your financial situation, even the weather.

Your internal environment is the environment you create for yourself – your thoughts, your emotions, your motivation, your values, what happens with your body.

 

How To Use Cues To Hack Your Habits

 

Anthony: What are some of the “cues” you talk about? Which is the most important in your opinion?

Joanna Jast: Cues are very important. Cues remind us that we need to do something. They prompt us, trigger us to do what we’re suppose to do. They whole idea of a habit as a repetitive action in response to a cue, really relies on the cue being enough of a trigger.

So if you want to have an effective trigger, effective cue, find one that stands out in your environment. There is little point in putting your cue on a sticky note, and pinning it up on a corkboard full of similar sticky notes. You won’t see it.

I say: choose something that disrupts the fabric of your reality. Just like the sound of a notification ‘time to go for a run’ popping up on your screen. And it disrupts what you’re doing, right? But that may be not enough. If then instead of going for the run, you just snooze or close the notification, it’s just doesn’t work, does it?

So once again, it’s very important that the cue you choose stands out in your environment and is hard to ignore. The best cues are those that have a cost of ignoring involved.

 

The Cost Of Ignoring Your Cues

 

I’ll give you an example of what I mean by having the cost of ignoring the cue. So I run three times per week. And my cue is seeing my greasy hair in the mirror in the morning – I run on days when I need to wash my hair. This is how I know it’s my running day.

And the cost of ignoring this cue is that I’d have to go to work with my hair unwashed. That’s unacceptable. Or that I have to jump in the shower and wash my hair. I don’t like washing my hair in the morning. So if I wanted to back off and don’t go for a run – there is a cost involved. And it’s just so much easier to just go for a run.

Anthony: Talk about checklists. What’s the most important thing people need to know about them when building habits?

Joanna Jast: Checklists are fantastic tools. Checklists help saving lives, prevent infections and industrial accidents. Checklists are simple, effective, they lower your cognitive load, they have high reliability. Research shows that if you follow a checklist, you’re 75% less likely to miss any of the steps required – and reduce the likelihood of failure to carry out your desired behaviour from 23% to 6% .

I use checklists particularly early in the process of establishing new habit, when I’m still learning what to do, when, in what sequence. I can’t rely on my memory anymore and I don’t want to add any more cognitive load to it.

The best way of creating a checklist is to:

Focus on critical steps and use as few steps as possible (the more steps you have, the more intimidating the checklist looks and the less likely you are to follow the steps – that’s just human nature
 Ideally, you want it to fit on one page (my checklists need to fit on a standard size post-it note – no room for writing novels!)
Make sure the sequence of steps fits the flow of your behaviour (e.g. Don’t turn your fitness tracked on before you put your running shoes on)
Use simple sentences and basic language
Have it visible and ideally where you will be carrying out your new habit. So if you’re trying to create a productivity or a focus routine – have your checklist somewhere in your workspace; highly visible to you of course. If you have a checklist for working out – keep it either with your workout gear, on your phone if you use your phone for tracking your workouts, or maybe even in the pocket of your running jacket.

 

How To Make Your Habits Perpetuate Themselves

 

Anthony: What is a habit loop?

Habit loop is the secret formula for creating and remodelling habits. It’s a three-element self-perpetuating cycle that is behind any automatic behaviour. It consists of three key elements:

Cue (also called reminder or trigger) – which we’ve just talked about
Routine (sometimes called Behaviour, Action)
Reward

Every habit rests on these three pillars: Cue that prompts you to carry out the Behaviour, which is then reinforced by the Reward. The more of those habit cycles you go through, the more often the behaviour gets reinforced, the stronger the habit is ingrained in your brain, and the stronger the neural pathway that is created in your brain.

 

What To Do If You Fall Off The Wagon

 

Anthony: What should someone do if they miss a day on their habits? How about a week? A month? A year? Is there a difference when it comes to getting back on the wagon?

Joanna Jast: There are habit building strategies that rely on performing your action every day – for example ‘don’t break the chain’ but actually, research shows that missing on a day in your habit routine does not make a difference to our habit formation process, but psychologically it may.

I wouldn’t worry too much about missing a day. I do it sometimes, not very often and only for very good reasons. Because life does get in the way of best-laid plans, so I just accept that. Sometimes you will be just too busy or too tired, or maybe sick, or you may have something super-important to do. Don’t beat yourself up about not ‘turning up’ one day. But get back on track as soon as possible. Don’t let the not turning up become a pattern, because this is when it becomes a problem.

When it becomes a pattern? You may have your own individual ‘definition’ of pattern, for me it goes like that: once can happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three is a pattern.

The more days you miss, the harder it will be to return to your routine.

If you notice that you miss your routine are more and more often, you need to look at your system again. Because it means your system is not working as well as it could or should.

And for me, it’s going back to the beginning – maybe not necessarily to the desired outcome, but at least going over all those limitations and constraints that come from within me, or from my environment. Because it my system is not delivering as well as it used to, it means that something has changed.

And sometimes those changes are temporary. For example you are on holidays and working away and you’re struggling to keep your exercise routine up because your environment is different. And sometimes the change may be more permanent. For example if you just had a baby your productivity or sleep routine may be affected in a way you’ve never experienced before.

Things like that will happen, because that’s part of life. For me, it’s always about being mindful that your habit system will also be affected. So it is crucial that you recognise when it happens and adjust your system to cater for your changed needs, or changed life circumstances.

The key thing is to realise when a temporary change has become more permanent, and make appropriate adjustments in your system. Or redesign it completely.

 

Why Your Willpower Resources Are Limited

 

Anthony: You talk about how willpower needs to replenish itself. What’s this all about?

Joanna Jast: This is about the concept of willpower or ego depletion – the theory that the amount if willpower we have is limited. We have like a willpower tank, where only so much willpower can be stored. And every time you use some of that willpower from your tank, there is less left for later. The amount of willpower will not increase, until you are able to replenish it. And that goes back to the studies done by Roy Baumeister, who is a social psychologist and one of the key researches in the field of self-control and willpower.

However, newer research challenges this belief about willpower depletion, suggesting that we have as much willpower as we perceive it. So again, it’s all in the mind.

Personally, it’s not a scientific argument, I know, but personally I experience those willpower outages quite often, and I’m aware of typical situations that are likely to cause it.

I’m also very conscious that I don’t have much willpower and need to be careful in how I use it. I make sure that I’m able to recover safely before I make any silly decision when my willpower tank is on zero.

What helps with the process of replenishing willpower is rest, and sadly, something sugary, or at least of a sweet taste in your mouth.

 

How To Experience A Miracle Every Morning

 

Anthony: What is scribing?

Joanna Jast: Scribing is one of life SAVERs, as Hal Elrod calls them. One of the key elements of the morning routine he recommends in his bestselling book the Miracle Morning. (Silence, Affirmations, Visualisation, Scribing, reading, Exercise)

In a nutshell scribing is about taking a minute out of your time, in the morning, to write down what you’re grateful for, what you’re proud of, and the results you’re committed to creating for that day. Doing so, you put yourself in an empowered, inspired, and confident state of mind.

It’s scribing is journaling that encompasses gratitude – one of the key factors in creating the sense of happiness and fulfilment in life, positive affirmations, stock-taking, reminding yourself of your goals.

It’s an excellent to start your day.

 

One Of The Most Powerful Principles

You Can Ever Live By

 

Anthony: You have a bonus section in the book. What habits did you use to get in contact with all those high-profile authors and convince them to contribute to the book?

Joanna Jast: It’s not really about me or my habits. The people who contributed to my book, Steve SJ Scott, Hal Elrod, Stephen Guise and Martin Meadows – they are amazing people, who are very generous, humble, and have fantastic knowledge and experience to share and they desire to use it to help other people. And that’s really what it is about – collaborating in helping people become happier, live more fulfilling lives.

But from the practical point of view, what helped me in reaching out to them, it’s not a habit, but more a principle I live by – it’s about building relationships with people; it takes time and you need to invest upfront.

Anthony: What’s coming up next for you and where can people get in touch?

Joanna Jast: At the moment I’m very excited with the launch of my new book: Hack Your Habits. 9-steps to finally break bad habits and start thriving. I’ve been also getting a lot of emails and messages form people asking me to help them transform their habits, speed up the learning and adaptation curve. I’m not providing individual support at the moment, but I’ve been thinking about it. So watch this space.

Early next year, my previous book Laser-Sharp Focus will be published as an audiobook and I’m really excited about it, too. I’m also thinking about translating the into other languages, as people have been asking me about it.

For now, if you want to stay in touch – visit my website www.shapeshiftersclub.com and subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date and get some insider tips on habit hacking, focus sharpening and faster learning. You can also try to catch me on Twitter and on Quora – which is the only site I allow myself to browse when procrastinating.

Further Resources

Joanna Jast on Quora

 

Joanna Jast on Twitter

 

 

The post Joanna Jast On How To Hack Your Habits appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

The Steps I Took To Memorize 3 Chinese Poems In 2.3 Weeks

[image error]Chinese poems thrill poetry fans around the world. They’ve been translated into umpteen languages and create wonderful images in the mind.

Here’s something even cooler:

As a student of the Magnetic Memory Method, it’s easy to encounter a new Chinese poem just once and memorize it with a high level of recall.

We’re talking 92-95% accuracy after 24 hours, with 98-100% accuracy thereafter using MMM Recall Rehearsal.

And the best part is:

 

Each Poem Is Easier To Memorize Than The Last!

 

So by now you’re probably asking …

How does the Magnetic Memory Method work for memorizing Chinese poems? And how can I do it too?

I’m glad you asked because the steps are clear, crisp, clever and concise.

 

1. Get some Chinese poems (Duh!)

 

In this regard, I’m the luckiest man on the planet. I’m married to a woman who knows a bunch of Chinese poems by heart.

But even if you don’t have a Chinese speaker in your life, it’s easy to find someone using a learn languages online service.

The important thing is to choose poems that are short, sweet and simple. This helps reduce the cognitive overload at the beginning.

 

2. Have More Than One Memory Palace On Hand

 

It’s no secret that I teach the Memory Palace technique as a skill of multiples. One is the most dangerous number when it comes to memory, so make sure that:

1) You always have more than one Memory Palace ready to go.

2) You have the ability to create an impromptu Memory Palace on the fly.

With these two abilities, you can either use a pre-existing Memory Palace or just whip one up on the spot.

In this case, each of the Chinese poems I’ve learned are only four lines each. I used a new Memory Palace for each.

I created the first two Memory Palaces on the fly, one in a hotel room, the other in an AirBnB. The third was in my current kitchen, a Memory Palace I’ve been using and reusing for Chinese since I started learning the language.

 

3. Create Your Associative-Imagery

Word For Word, Line By Line

 

Nothing creates more fun than creating associations that let you recall information like the lines of Chinese poems.

I like to get a sense for the word and let my mind do the work without force. Daily meditation helps because I’m relaxed, but I also tell April to give me a second when she feeds me the lines. In that second, I’m breathing and accessing the deepest reservoirs of relaxation I’ve cultivated over the years.

I also do a quick body scan and squeeze all my major muscles. This calms and centers me. My ego gets out of the way and all forms of resistance slip away.

Please don’t laugh at the meditation and relaxation. They are key to the success of most memorizers and memory competitions incorporate a version of it into the events.

 

The “Buttock Squeeze” Memory Technique

You Should Not Dismiss

 

I’ll never forget the Amazon reviewer who dismissed one of my books because I talk about relaxation and memory – including squeezing your buttocks. It was a seriously strange review.

But here’s the thing:

If taking a second to clear the mind and body good enough for memory competitors who demonstrate intense memory feats like memorizing a deck of cards in under 20 seconds, it’s good enough for my simple goal of memorizing some Chinese poems.

Don’t discount the power of relaxation in your memory practice. It makes a huge difference.

And yes, squeezing each muscle in your body – including your rear end – helps. Try it before you knock it.

Prime Ministers Of Canada: How To Memorize Them All

[image error]Life is good, isn’t it? You bet it is.

But for some reason, when times get tough, without knowing a thing about the Prime Ministers of Canada, people around the world throw up their hands and say, “It’s time to head to the Great White North.”

Here’s the thing:

You’ll find some beautiful terrain and plenty of peace-loving citizens. But as a nation, we do not lack our own host of colorful characters.

So if you’re coming over for a permanent BBQ in response to US election results or some dictator who’s been giving you the squeeze, it’s time to learn how to memorize the Prime Ministers of Canada. It’s important to know what you’re getting into, after all.

5 Ways To Get More Interested In Boring Topics You Have To Study

[image error]Studying about boring topics you don’t give a hoot about sucks, right?

Especially when you’re in a rush.

Especially when all you want is the grade, the certification, the knowledge.

Well, I can’t make any promises, but there might be a way to help make any topic much more interesting to you. At the very least, we can remove the sting of boredom. At best, we can make any topic we want 100% Magnetic.

1. Warning Signs That Your Mindset Is Off

 

I know, I know. You’re tired of hearing about mindset.

But let’s face it. We have minds. Every day we wake up with more or less the same world outside the window. Just like we have to make our beds so that the sheets won’t be sprawled all over the place, we have to set up our minds for success.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Lots of people are happy to leave their beds messy all day long and then crawl into the unkempt mess at night. It’s cold because the mattress has been exposed and probably a bunch of insects have settled into the dune-like patterns. Sure, you might fall asleep okay, but there’s nothing like slipping into a made bed.

You know it’s true.

 

It’s The Same Thing With Your Mind!

 

Sure thing, you can get through life without setting up your mind for success, but it will be cold and exposed to the elements. The bugs will crawl in and lay their eggs, and you’ll never get the warmth you deserve.

But take just a few moments to tidy up and you’ll reduce the suffering that comes from studying things you don’t like.

Because that’s just the thing: A lack of mindset is probably the thing that got you into a position where you’re studying things you’re not passionate about in the first place. You’re probably studying material that produces no great excitement because you’re chasing after hopes and beliefs and dreams and wishes – not what you really want.

 

How To Set A Powerful Mindset For Learning

 

Whether you’re trapped or not, the process works the same. The best way to get your mindset in order is to set it each and every morning. As I talked about in the Mandarin Chinese Mnemonics And Morning Memory Secrets episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, having morning rituals is a killer way to conquer the day.

When it comes to creating a mindset for making the material you’re studying vibrant and exciting, all you have to do is write down in a journal how exciting it is to be studying and how grateful you are to have the opportunity.

And it’s true: Not everyone has the learning opportunities you do. A massive percentage of people in the world don’t have access to the Internet, schools, books or anything even remotely related to helping them develop their knowledge.

But you …

 

You’ve Got Everything You Need

 

So take a moment every day to recognize what an amazing opportunity you have. If that isn’t a recipe for injecting excitement into a boring topic … I don’t know what is.

 

2. Be An Info-Completionist

 

Okay, so now that you’re plump with self-hypnosis induced excitement for the privilege of study, you still have to sit down and learn the stuff.

The question is … How?

A lot of people ask me how I manage to read so much, and the answer is simple:

Get a book. Find a place to sit. Read the book. Repeat until you’re done.

I don’t say that to be flippant, but it’s the truth. If you’re trying to read in a place filled with distractions or on a device that encourages you to skip from tab to tab and answer notifications …

 

Stop Trying To Read Like That!

 

Seriously. It’s not a recipe for success.

Plus, you want to read in a way that helps you isolate the information you want to memorize. I have two posts with podcasts and videos that show you how to realistically memorize a textbook. Just check out the video for now:

If you want more information, listen to How to Memorize A Textbook and study the infographic.

True, my approach to realistically memorizing textbooks involves a bit of setup, but people who give it a try usually find that the process makes reading and remembering the key points of even the most difficult books much easier.

The best part:

By having a dedicated strategy for reading books, you make it a lot more fun. Like having a mindset, having a process you can follow without having to think about it makes everything more fun and interesting. Having operating principles and guidelines reduces cognitive load, and like Tony Buzan said when I studied with him, the rules set you free.

 

3. Look For The Parts That Do Interest You

 

One thing that you’ll learn from my training on (reasonable) textbook memorization is how to skip the parts that don’t interest you.

No, you can’t always do this. There are times when you have to slog through boring stuff you don’t care about.

But here’s the thing: by knowing what you do care about, you get more interested in things that connect with it. It happens automatically.

And when interest doesn’t spontaneously erupt, you at least get a clearer picture of why those other elements are necessary. The more you know about a topic changes the nature of what you don’t know. It makes it more attractive, more Magnetic.

And that which becomes more Magnetic is easier to attach to memory because you’re simply more interested in it.

4. Invite Information Into Your Memory

In other words, use memory techniques.

You knew this was coming, didn’t you?

Let’s face it: The best way to make dry and boring information more interesting is to make it part of your memory improvement lifestyle. That means organizing the information so that you can rapidly absorb it into a Memory Palace.

To do that, you get to invite the information into a place you’ve created in your mind. I don’t want to sound woo-woo, but there’s something ritualistic about this. It’s like anointing information, blessing it or touching its shoulder with the edge of your sword as if you were knighting it.

Once anointed, you start looking at the information through mnemonic eyes. You’re looking for how you can attach it to associative-imagery and place these images on your Memory Palace stations. You’re already getting excited about revisiting your Magnetic Stations and decoding the imagery to ease it into long term memory.

And before you know it … The information isn’t boring any more.

Far from it! That information has become …

 

The Most Interesting Information In The World!

 

This is without a doubt the finest thing you can do for the life of your memory and overall intelligence. When you privilege information and stop demonizing it by framing it in negative ways, it will want to enter your mind.

Even better: If you’ve invited the information in just the right way, it will want to stay.

 

5. Bore Others To Death With Your Boring Topic

 

Just kidding.

By the time you’ve made the information interesting to yourself, you’ll be excited to talk about it and to do that, you should have something already in place:

Community.

Remember how I told you should be grateful for having the opportunity to learn in the first place? And how you can use your gratitude as a tool for generating excitement in even the most boring topic?

Well, you also have the Internet and thousands of groups people have created for discussing topics that they either find really exciting, challenging or want to kvetch about. You can find these groups meeting on forums, on Facebook, G+ or just shooting the breeze in YouTube comments.

Let’s say you’re studying cognitive therapy, something I’ve recently gotten interested in studying.

The first thing is to show some gratitude for having the time and opportunity even to do so. Write that down in your daily gratitude journal.

Then, hop on to Facebook and search for groups that are already discussing this topic. Ask to join. For example, you can ask to join my Learn German Memory Hacks group, or even the Magnetic Memory Method Private Facebook Group. Have fun once you’re inside!

But Proceed With Caution!

 

Don’t overwhelm yourself with this. Just pick one or two that looks like it has enough members for finding a decent amount of discussion in process.

Introduce yourself once you’ve been admitted. Tell them a bit about who you are and why you’re interested in the topic. Make friends with the group admins and shoot them a note to thank them for taking time to put the group together. Probably no one else is doing that so you’ll be on their radar and recognize your name later.

Why would that matter?

Easy. Because when you get bored or stuck somewhere in your reading, you have a place to go and post where at least a few people are going to know your name.

Knowing that you have a place to go and share ideas in advance is a great way of making sure a topic never becomes boring to you.

Of course, the dark side of this technique is that you’ll get swept away doing a thousand other things online, but we all need to learn how to balance these things. I’m writing this post now in a library where getting online is too much of a pain – deliberately so that I have no distractions.

Because here’s the core of the matter:

 

If You Really Want To Get Ahead, You Will Find A Way

 

And with that monster of a headline, we’ve circled back to mindset, something you can get started crafting or refining right now.

Exciting, isn’t it?

Now get out there and tackle some uninteresting information you using these tools. I dare you to be bored!

The post 5 Ways To Get More Interested In Boring Topics You Have To Study appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

17 Reasons Going To Art Galleries Will Improve Your Memory

[image error]Want to improve your ability to use memory techniques almost overnight? I promise it’s super-easy. All you need is the willingness to support your nearest art gallery and your awareness of the following 17 reasons going to an art gallery is good for your memory.

 

1. Art Inspires Your Visual Imagination

 

When you’re using memory techniques, you draw upon visual imagination. Even if you’re only using words in your mind when developing mnemonics, you’re using visual words.

The more visual iconography you’ve seen in your life, the more potency the visual words you use will hold. Exposure equals experience. Experience leads to substance. When you use the words “run,” “hit” or any other verb, the more art you’ve seen, the great depth of meaning these words will have.

 

2. Art Depicts Words Used In Visual Ways

 

If you’ve been to an art gallery lately, you’ve undoubtedly seen how modern artists use words. Pop artists use comic strips. Futurists made a big deal out of typefaces. You don’t even have to enter an art gallery to see words used in graffiti on nearly every street in your city.

Looking at art and paying attention to how artists use words is especially great for inspiring how you can use your visual imagination to memorize foreign language vocabulary and phrases. Next time you’re in an art gallery, pay particular attention to how words appear in the exhibits.

3. Art Helps You Make Mental Connections

Between Space And Material Objects

 

Looking at art is never just about “looking.” As your eyes meet the graphic displays, ideas emerge. In fact, “art” happens the moment that you start thinking about what you’re looking at or noticing your emotional responses.

You can become conscious of what you’re thinking and feeling and use your awareness to become more visual. Reflect on how the visual experience has triggered your thoughts and responses.

Also, journal what you’ve thought while at the gallery. By writing down your responses, you access your memory. Accessing your memory exercises your mind, which helps keep it fit.

4. Visiting Art Galleries Makes

You Aware Of World Geography

 

It’s not just that art often depicts different parts of the world. Art galleries also exhibit art by international artists.

Pay attention to the international names and locations of where the art originates. This will exercise your geographical imagination and give you more facts to remember. It’s also great memory exercise to remember the names of the artists you see and include their home countries.

For bonus points, you can also use the Major Method to add the dates of their lives and when they created the pieces you’re admiring. The more experienced you become with memory techniques, the more information you can memorize at a single go.

Plus, the location of the art itself within the gallery amounts to a Memory Palace station. Using the location gives you great practice at using your spatial memory in addition to all the other tools mnemonics draw upon, such as association, semantic memory, episodic memory and the like.

 

5. Art Galleries Are Depositories Of History

 

Yes, you can memorize the raw data of dates when going to an art gallery. But you also expose your memory to information about historical periods.

Artists love to reference other eras and historical events. Some artists have even made careers out of referencing history. Fluency in art equals fluency in history, which is always good for your memory.

 

6. Art Galleries Exercise Your Ability To Create Meaning

 

Let’s face it: A lot of art doesn’t make much sense.

At least, that’s until you give it some thought and learn about how to interpret art. Believe me. Interpretation matters.

After all, a huge part of art interpretation is creating meaning. To have created meaning, you have to remember the meaning you created. Ergo, going to art galleries and interpreting what you see is good for your memory.

And if you’re practicing memory techniques, handling abstract ideas your mind is perfect for practicing the art of remembering challenging and abstract ideas. Art history is loaded with them.

 

7. Art Galleries Give You The Experience Of Puzzlement

 

Being puzzled by something is different than having to create meaning. To be puzzled, after all, you must have already understood something. Two (or more) things are separated and you know they go together …

You just have to figure out how. Visiting art galleries gives you that experience and to fit the pieces together, you need to hold them in memory.

The benefits of being puzzled are massive because it always exercises your memory as you work things out. Even if you give up before you’re satisfied, your memory abilities will have grown.

 

8. Art Galleries Create Enigmas

That Carry On Throughout Life

 

Looking at art not only forces you to create meaning and solve puzzles. It also creates unsolvable mysteries that you will carry throughout your life.

Take “The Persistence of Meaning” by Salvador Dali. What exactly does it mean? No matter how many times you see this painting, it still mystifies. The enigma of surrealism persists precisely because it resists meaning.

And yet, we can continuously connect to the enigma and try puzzling out new meanings even if we know we’ll never come to a conclusion. In Critical Theory, this is called “indeterminacy” and it is a powerful tool in art, cinema, theatre and literature.

 

Try This Simple Memory Exercise

 

For a cool memory exercise, take a painting like “The Persistence of Meaning” and try to remember the first time you saw it.

Even if you’re wrong, right down your earliest memory. For me, my earliest memory is in Collier’s Encyclopedia. I believe it was in black and white.

My next memory is seeing it in a book in high school. After that, I remember buying an art book, cutting it out and hanging it on my wall.

Although I surely saw it countless times after that, my next memory is seeing the painting itself in Manhattan.

My most recent memory is in seeing watch sculptures in Zürich-based on the melting timepiece in the painting. And that triggers my memory of hearing Alejandro Jodorowsky tell me about the time he met Dali as a boy and the story of finding a watch in the desert.

You don’t have to use “The Persistence of Time” when you do the exercise, but give it a try. List as many exposures to the artwork as you can and then free associate. You’ll find that your memory expands the more you use it, and all the more so as you engage in memory games of this sort.

 

9. Looking At Art In Galleries

Creates Conflicting Opinions

 

Even if you go to art galleries alone, you’ll often find yourself in disagreement. Many artists go out of the way to polarize audiences, and using tools like “indeterminacy,” they often pull your heartstrings in opposing directions.

Conflicts like these are perfect for memory because you’ll remember how you felt looking at the painting at a deeper level. You’ll have more interesting inner dialogs which also encodes longer term memories.

If you want to help yourself remember more, keep a journal of the conflicting opinions you experience while looking at art just before you sleep after visiting a gallery. The reason to do this before you go to sleep is that memories consolidate during the night. Some studies have shown that the closer to sleep that you review information, the more likely your brain is to consolidate it into long term memory.

 

10. Art Gallery Gift Shops Have Memory-Inducing Books

 

After you’ve looked at the art in the gallery, you wind up seeing a lot of it over again in the bookstore.

Don’t get annoyed at the upselling. It’s good for your memory.

Plus, there are often cool books you can buy and read to learn more about the art you’ve encountered. Interview books with the artists themselves appeal because you find out more about their personal stories, theories and opinions at the same time. It’s a very cool way to make sometimes difficult information more concrete.

One of the reasons interviews with artists makes the ideas easier to remember is because you get stories and examples, but also the questions of the interviewers. Interviewers bring particular perspectives. If you pay attention to them and absorb their character, their attitudes instantly make the ideas under discussion more memorable.

 

11. Art Galleries Make You Look At

The Outside World Differently

 

Often artists use everyday objects within the art gallery to change our perspective of the outside world. But when you deliberately remember more of what you’ve seen inside the gallery, you will find that you also see the outside world differently.

For example, I just saw “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” by Jeff Koons for the first time in Oslo. You often read about the effect that it has in art criticism, but it’s not until you’ve seen it with your own eyes that the kitschy art in stories takes on the intended effect.

 

12. Visiting Art Galleries Inspires New Ideas

 

Art galleries are idea-generating machines. After all, every piece of art started with an idea – even if it was just the idea to throw paint at the wall.

The more ideas you encounter and the more you play with those ideas in your mind, the more likely you are to come up with ideas of your own.

Plus, you might walk away with the idea of actually creating some art. If you do follow through, that might be the best idea of all. No matter what happens to the art you create, you learn so much just by taking action.

 

13. Visiting Art Galleries Gives You More To Talk About

 

Be honest: You wish you were a more interesting person.

I know I do, and the secret is in always feeding yourself new and exciting things to discuss.

“Hey, did you see the new exhibit at our local gallery?” is a powerful conversation starter, for example. Plus, you’ll be supporting art in your community by inspiring others to see art and helping them experience a better memory in the process.

 

14. You Can Make A Memory Palace

From Each Art Gallery You Visit

 

Art galleries don’t always make the best Memory Palaces, but you can still use them for the exercise.

Plus, as I mentioned, each piece of art automatically provides its own station.

As with historical sites you encounter while on vacation, I recommend that you make your art gallery Memory Palaces as simple as possible. Use the entrance, one or two simple rooms and the exit only.

You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with multiple floors, stairways and those weird nooks and crannies. Unless they’re crucial to your success, skip the complicated parts of art galleries and focus on the parts that are dead simple to remember.

 

15. You Can Take A Guided Tour

And Develop Your Concentration

 

All of us struggle with not having enough FOCUS. So if the art gallery you visit offers a guided tour – take it.

One of the best ways to extend your concentration is to focus on lectures filled with data. I like to repeat the information I’m hearing in my own voice to help extend my focus.

It’s perfectly fine if your attention wanders. Just gently bring it back and enjoy how with practice you can extend the amount of time you hold focus during the tours you take.

For another kind of memory exercise, you can record the audio presentation and later use the How To Memorize A Textbook training to get the key points rapidly into long-term memory.

You might even want to give tours or your own by taking friends to see the art gallery later. You can practice your memory in a substantial way by telling others what you’ve learned and sharing your conflicting opinions.

Listening to their responses is another great way of practicing focus and developing your memory. You cannot lose by taking and giving art gallery tours.

 

16. You Might Even Meet Artists

 

During a recent art gallery visit in Helsinki, I met an interesting landscape artist. She gave me a personal tour of her works in the gallery, explaining her thoughts about color and telling me where exactly she was when creating the art.

Not only did this make the visit to the gallery more memorable to me, but I had the chance to ask her about her own memory. She said that she can paint from memory, but prefers to compose in the environment so that she can respond to the present moment.

Fascinating ideas like these make living a life devoted to memory even more interesting.

 

17. You Can Experience Fear

In Art Galleries And Still Be Safe

 

At the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, I almost crapped my pants when I saw Zhou Tao’s “”Chicken speak to duck, pig speak to dog.”

It’s a video installation with a weird dude yelling and squealing while up in a tree.

I had a hard time figuring out what it was all about until I read the title and description, but the combination of emotion, enigma and solving the riddle by reading the information consolidated the experience in memory.

Even better, I’m practicing what I preach right now by writing about the experience as my last job before going to bed, all of which will help consolidate the memory of this experience.

 

For Memory’s Sake, Visit An Art Gallery Soon

 

There are loads more reasons why going to art galleries can improve your memory. You see so much art in so many different mediums that it gives you an incredible amount of exposure to vibrant information that you’ll want to remember.

Are some of the pieces you’ll see meaningless fluff?

Perhaps.

But it’s all part of experiencing the world of art and expanding as a visual person.

And the more visual you become, the easier it is to use memory techniques.

Give yourself the gift of visual exposure and plan to visit an art gallery today.

Seriously. In most cities, it doesn’t have to cost a dime. Usually, art galleries open their doors once a week for free.

Plus, your city might have local galleries featuring independent artists. Restaurants often feature works by local artists. You can even arrange viewings of private collections in the homes of collectors with a simple Google search.

Trust me. It’s worth it and will make your life more memorable.

The post 17 Reasons Going To Art Galleries Will Improve Your Memory appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

System For Remembering Cards? 13 Reasons You Should Have One

[image error]Memory techniques work by dressing up information in costumes. Sound weird or confusing? No worries: One of the best ways to understand this concept is by having a system for remembering cards.

Consider the following when it comes to using memory techniques in your quest for total memory improvement:

Dressing information in costumes is at least 90% of what’s going on when you develop a system for remembering cards (or any information). Often, this practice is called “association” or “encoding.” Tim Ferriss has used the term “converting” for memorizing a deck of cards, and many other terms abound.

Don’t get caught up in the terminology, however. That risks missing the math, because …

The other 10% of memory success belongs to the Memory Palace and how you use it to store and practice recalling information. It’s in the storage and recollection practice that you guide information into long-term memory.

When you know how to “hack” your memory, you know that it’s actually in that 10% of the process where most of the memory magic happens. It’s in the process that you’re harnessing the power of the primacy effect and the recency affect. But the memory magic happens only …

 

If You’ve Got The Skills Needed

For The 90% Under Control

 

And if you want to get that 90% humming along for yourself in record time, then there is one crazy memory exercise you can do that will completely train your brain so that your memory operates at a shockingly high level.

 

Sounds Stupid, But Memorizing Playing

Cards Is Still The Best Memory Exercise Ever

 

I know, I know. Unless you’re a magician or memory athlete, memorizing a deck of cards does sound like a meaningless skill.

Yet, I can tell you with absolute certainty that all of my success with memory comes from, is maintained and continually improved by this seemingly stupid stunt.

And 90% of it involves little more than dressing up each card in a costume using the Major Method.

And to convince you that you should have a system for remembering cards, I’m going to show, you 13 reasons why you should memorize playing cards as part of your memory practice.

 

1. You Experience Overall Memory Improvement

 

Obviously, memorizing playing cards improves your overall memory. How could such intense memory practice not improve your memory abilities?

After all, the best way to improve your memory is to use it. I normally say that you should always practice your memory by using it to remember information you can use to improve your life in a substantial way, but card memorization is the one exception.

And since there is ALWAYS an exception to every rule, this one is worth your close attention.

The rest of the points I’m about to share explain in detail why card memory is so powerful even if it amounts to memorizing information you cannot and will not use in any immediately practical situation (outside of card magic).

2. Having A System For Remembering Cards

Improves Your Memory For Numbers

 

Not only that, but you wind up with a neat way of remembering a lot of different kinds of numbers. So long as you don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with excitement by your super memory powers (like I sometimes do), you’ll have the ability to memorize any number after picking up this simple memory technique.

 

3. You’ll Get Good At Memorizing Long Lists

 

After all, what is a deck of cards other than a list of job positions in a unique order? Learn to remember the order of 52 cards and you’ll instantly know how to memorize 52 of anything.

And with a few simple expansions and some practice, you can repeat the process or hundreds if not thousands of lists. It’s easy and fun.

 

4. You’ll Develop Killer Abilities With Memorizing

And Managing Abstractions

 

People find memorizing concepts amongst the most difficult information types in the world. The symbols on playing cards are downright abstract themselves, so this skill will lighten the load on other abstractions and arbitrary associations you encounter.

One trick is to simply stop convincing yourself that concepts are different than any other kind of information. Training with card memory will teach you how to stop making that mistake because it levels the playing field. Just like a rose is a rose is a rose, so does all information share certain core tendencies.

When we focus on the differences between information and levels of difficulty, we trick ourselves out. When we zone in on the similarities and refuse to privilege information by placing it in hierarchies of difficulty, we win.

5. Remembering Cards Improves Your Imagination

 

Just about everyone wishes they could be more imaginative. With the ability to memorize a deck of cards, your imagination can grow on a daily basis simply by carrying a deck of cards in your pocket. Or, if you don’t want your memorize a deck of cards mnemonics linked to a physical deck of cards, you can use a memorize a deck of cards app.

 

6. Memorizing Cards Helps With Language Learning

 

To be honest, I’ve only used the card memory application to language learning with the tones of Chinese Mandarin.

But darn if this approach to memorizing Chinese tones with the Major Method isn’t a humdinger! Anytime you can put a number or image on how words should be pronounced in any language, you’ll almost certainly find assistance from this skill.

Plus, I’m convinced that regular card practice has developed my speed and agility with coming up with mnemonics for memorizing vocabulary in any language.

 

7. Card Memorization Improves Your Critical Thinking

 

Imagine being able to see more angles to different arguments and manipulate information in your mind. It might sound unrelated to card memorization, but I’m confident you’ll find yourself more capable of manipulating ideas once you have this simple skill.

Why?

You experience boosts in critical thinking from using memory techniques in general because you’re combining spatial memory with the manipulation of perspectives and scenarios. When you’re using Bridging Figures, for example, you spend time considering what it’s like to act and react from different perspectives.

Plus, you’re continually diving deep into your imagination which makes it easier to penetrate other topics imaginatively. You should find that you start thinking at a more engaged level by default.

 

8. Memorizing Cards Is A Cool Party Stunt

 

This reason isn’t as lame as it sounds. After all, when those other dudes are winning bets by balancing quarters on the edges of their beer mugs, you’ll be demonstrating real miracles.

Seriously. People will start looking for mirrors. They’ll look at the back of the cards to check if they’re marked or gimmicked. Recalling a deck of shuffled cards in perfect order is such a stunning feat to watch that it’s hard to believe what’s happening, even if it’s the hundreth or thousandth time you’ve seen it.

If you’re not doing card memorization as a memory stunt, you can also learn to false shuffle cards and perform magic tricks that play like miracles. Provided that you can pull off false cuts and shuffles (it’s not that hard), tricks that use a memorized decks are probably the most powerful you can ever learn.

 

9. Card memory is a legitimate sport.

 

If you aren’t a physical athlete, but have always felt that lust to compete in some area of human performance, card memory is a great option. The memorize a deck of cards world record list is stunning, inspiring and … frustrating. It’s hard to not want to beat it.

And if you ever give it a try, at either a local, national or international level, you’ll meet a lot of cool and interesting people. And if you attend events like the World Memory Championships, you’ll meet absolute masters of the art. Just listen to Tony Buzan talk about that on this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast.

 

10. Having A System For Remembering

Cards Is A Transferable Skill

 

I’ve already got this point covered, but it deserves its own category. You really can use this technique to remember a large assortment of numbers and experience powerful applications in language learning and more.

Having a set of mnemonics for memorizing a deck of cards gives you improved abilities in all areas of memory. And even if you’re already good at memorizing cards, you can always get better. Alex Mullen may currently hold the world record for memorized cards, but someone will eventually take this title. It could be you and the transferable skills you’ll build along the way will be invaluable.

11. You’ll Experience Untold Waves Of

Accomplishment From Card Memorization

 

When was the last time you felt proud of yourself?

I mean, really proud?

Be honest and don’t worry if it’s been awhile.

With card memory skills, you can feel proud each and every day of your life.

I know self-pride strikes some people as fickle, but it’s not. The normal need for self-confidence is what extraordinary people use to keep their memory sharp and help fend off “digital dementia.” I’m in no way claiming that mental exercise medically prevents brain disease, but it’s positively logical to assume there are physical benefits at work.

 

12. You Become More Mentally Agile

When You Practice Card Memory

 

Not only do you experience physical brain benefits, but you strengthen your memory skills across the board. It’s like getting better at skipping rope can make you better in the boxing ring.

Think about your memory in terms of space. You have warm and cozy places of familiarity and outer regions of cold and darkness you rarely visit.

By taking on a simple new skill, you bring heat to more parts of your memory. That means new civilizations of information can move in, giving you the chance to practice managing diverse data as part of your personal and professional growth. Just imagine being able to juggle facts in your mind, knowing each one in crisp and sharp detail thanks to the well-lit fires in your mind.

In fact, you’ll be like the expert juggler, each piece of information like a burning torch you can expertly spin through the air and effortlessly catch in a display of memory mastery.

Plus, the ability to memorize a deck of cards teaches you to create a system for remembering cards based on classic memory methods. You can the practice you’ll get creating and using the system you create to help you create other memory systems.

It’s in this ability to create memory systems out of an understanding of universal principles of memory and methods that you develop amazing powers of mental agility.

 

13. You Can Excel At Card Games Like

Bridge, Poker And Blackjack

 

Imagine being able to remember every single visible card in play during a card game. Do you think that would give you a competitive edge?

It certainly would, even though most experts agree that it would only amount to a 2% advantage.

ONLY.

If you know your numbers, then you know that a 2% advantage in any game is huge. And if that game involves bets with money, be it pennies or dollars, your earnings could be huge.

I myself don’t gamble, but I can tell you that the pleasure I take in playing no-stakes games using memory to my advantage is a lot of fun. And it’s always amazing exercise as one of the most powerful brain games you’ll ever play.

Of course, you don’t have to use memory techniques for gambling games. The “memorize a deck of cards game” world is full of non-competitive “find ’em” variations that have no stakes involved whatsoever. You just lay out card pairs and practice remembering locations so you can match and remove them during game play.

 

Should You Use An App For Memorizing Playing Cards?

 

A lot of people ask me to recommend my favorite memorize a deck of cards app.

I always tell them to simply carry a deck of cards with them. It’s the best deck of cards app on the planet in my view because it gets the muscles of your hands, arms and eyes involved in card memorization at a much deeper level.

No, I don’t have any direct research to make claims that you get a memory advantage when using a real deck of cards. In fact, using a memorize a deck of cards app, provided it includes such functionality, has the advantage of tracking your results on autopilot.

By the same token, you get equally great results by tracking your results by hand, including developing the discipline of monitoring results based on a tracking system of your own creation. Ultimately, if you take the art of creating a system for remembering cards seriously, you’ll eventually create your own tracking methods anyway.

If you come to rely on a memorize a deck of cards app, you won’t be able to modify its tracking modifications to your needs. But you’ll likely have become habituated to using it, which means you may be less likely to evolve. Or maybe you’ll be more likely to evolve … it could go either way.

One of the memorize a deck of cards app you can try that can give you tracking options if you’re a premium member is the Memrise deck of cards course.

What I like about the course is that you get some good ideas for images for each card. However, you aren’t getting training in the universal principles of memory, nor are you creating your own system. The relationships are not arbitrary, which is good, but they’re also not based on the Major Method, which means that you don’t have functionality beyond the card memorization for numbers.

But as far as a kind of deck of cards memory game, the Memrise deck of cards course is worth taking a look at. It gives you something different to try. However, taking this course risks creating some confusion if you have an existing set of memorize a deck of cards mnemonics in mind. It will also not give you a system for remembering cards in the true sense of a “system” you get when basing your card approach on the Major Method.

By the same token, it can be a great memory challenge to have more than one system for remembering cards in mind. Juggling multiple memory methods and the systems you create from them is for advanced stages of the game, however. It’s best to master one memory skill first and then move on to the next.

Should You Develop A System

For Remembering Cards?

 

Absolutely.

Again, I know it sounds like remembering cards is a useless skill on the surface. However, if you’re serious about memory improvement, you’ll be glad I twisted your arm into learning it.

Once you’ve recalled even just 1/4 of a deck of cards, you’ll be convinced of how much potential your memory holds. This simple feat of memory accomplishment will create energy and inspiration that keeps you moving forward. Once you’ve accurately recalled just a few cards you’ll know just how easy it is to learn, remember and recall anything.

It’s a life changing experience and I can’t wait to hear your story of success with developing your own system for remembering cards!

The post System For Remembering Cards? 13 Reasons You Should Have One appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

How To Remember More Of Your Vacations With A Memory Palace

[image error]Travel is awesome, right?

You bet it is.

The only problem is that most people don’t maximize the value of their vacations. Instead of going in prepared to remember as much as humanly possible, they accept what they can get from the default settings of the muscle sitting between their ears.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Here’s how to travel differently so that you remember more, enjoy more and get to take your vacations again and again with the vibrant recall of an intense dream.

 

Infinitely Increase The Value Of Every Hotel Room With A Simple Memory Palace

 

One of the first things to do is draw out a quick sketch of your hotel room. It’s simple to chart a well-formed Memory Palace journey using such a small space.

Even if the Memory Palace only has four or five stations, you’re already ahead of the game because your mind is in memory mode. Here’s an example of a quick hotel Memory Palace in room April and I shared on our honeymoon. We were taking the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm:

As seen in the video, you can also create a Memory Palace of the lobby, the hotel restaurant, gift shop and any other rooms you spot that look manageable. If you’re comfortable using outdoor Memory Palaces, parking lots and the hotel entrance can be powerful resources.

Of course, to draw Memory Palaces, you’ll need a Memory Journal.

 

How To Keep A Memory Journal

 

Memory Journals are great for a number of purposes:

Drawing Memory Palaces
Describing mnemonic images
Testing recall
Troubleshooting
Tracking results
Recording thoughts and impressions

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When traveling, your Memory Journal will also let you make notes about what you did on each day of the trip as you make quick sketches of the places you visit.

To get started, buy a simple notebook. It can be lined or unlined. I recommend that you decorate the cover and then get started listing out as many potential Memory Palaces as you can. If you need help, check out the episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast called How to Find Memory Palaces and make sure that you have the MMM Worksheets that come with my FREE Memory Improvement Kit.

 

Gather Maps, Floor Plans And Think Strategically

 

You’re traveling to enjoy yourself, right? Who wants to sit around drawing squares all day? (Except me?)

Luckily, when visiting many parks, museums and historical locations, you don’t have to spend your time this way. Instead, you can grab up brochures with mockups and floorplans of museums, churches and art galleries for reference later. If your Memory Journal has a storage pack, you can bomb these inside for reference later.

The important thing is that you think strategically when entering the location. Note the corners of rooms and the best areas for Memory Palace creation. You can already start constructing it in your mind.

If you’re experienced, you can also start using the Memory Palace right away. For example, using the Major Method, you can memorize the date of a painting along with its name. If you’re learning a foreign language, this is a great way to pick up new vocabulary.

Use The Memory Improvement Power Of Photography

 

Taking photos of your loved ones and the main attractions is an important part of traveling. But you can get your camera into the Memory Game too by taking photos of building layouts. Hotel beds, for example, make excellent micro-stations in Memory Palaces.

Using PowerPoint software, you can reconstruct the Memory Palace from your photos. For many people, this simple process makes their Memory Palaces much more vivid and useful. You can also use the software to impose information directly onto the Memory Palace stations for Recall Rehearsal.

However, please note that although this kind of activity is acceptable at the beginning stages, it will not strengthen your memory in the same way that drawing Memory Palaces and then using them from your imagination alone achieves. Work towards creating and using tech-free Memory Palaces and your skills will soar.

Think of it as the difference between doddering along with training wheels and the freedom of riding a bike assisted only by your instinctual knowledge of balance, velocity and the physics of pedaling. The only difference is that in matters of memory and the mind, you never need to work up a sweat to get the benefits.

But if you do need some assistance, here’s an example of a Memory Palace station and directionality I created using the Midland Hotel where I stayed during the New Media Europe convention in 2015. As you can see, it’s easy to place the station number and a direction signature for later use as you scroll through the PowerPoint (I used Keynote in Mac):

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As a final camera tip, photograph street corners and use them as Memory Palaces for memorizing street names. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can recall intersections, not just for finding your way back to places, but for giving recommendations to other travelers.

Yes, it’s an ego boost too when you can show off your knowledge of cities around the world. Just don’t let it get to your head and never forget that with great power comes great responsibly. Teach what you’ve learned about memory techniques to others by telling them how you memorized street names.

 

Make Videos For Review Later

 

If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you’ve probably seen some of the videos I’ve been putting out about creating Memory Palaces along the way.

I even got April into the memory improvement game while visiting Prague:

Part of what I’m doing by making these videos is teaching what can be done to create an impromptu Memory Palace. But I’m also practicing my own memory as I teach.

You don’t have to do anything so elaborate as posting your personal travel videos on YouTube, but the act of shooting the Memory Palaces you want to create will not only make your trip more memorable, but aid you in the creation process. It’s also a fun way to create images of yourself that ideally won’t lead to the corrosion of your memory.

The Forbidden City:

My Most Challenging Memory Palace

 

A lot of historical sites offer fodder for Memory Palace creation, and many are straightforward to navigate and commit to memory. Other historical locations, however, are so sprawling and complex, it’s difficult to know how to use them.

I found this to be the case with the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. It’s not just that the Forbidden City is labyrinthine. There are also many large spaces inside matched by contained areas. The temple structures within each area differ in shape, size and purpose. A few sections feature trees, ponds and fountains. Plus, there are gift shops throughout, many difficult to distinguish from each other.

Rather than take the Forbidden City as one entire Memory Palace, it made more sense to prepare for the creation of three individual Memory Palaces:

The front entrance
The largest structure (name)
The exit

By breaking the Forbidden city down in this way, I can capitalize on two of memory’s biggest assets:

The primacy effect and the recency effect.

Although not always true, we tend to remember the elements of a sequence we encounter first and last the best.

For example, the one and only time I participated in a memory competition with Dave Farrow during the playing cards event, I remember to this day the first few cards and the last few I memorized. I can pick out a few in the middle, but most are hazy. (If I’d used Magnetic Memory Method Recall Rehearsal, I could have overcome the forgetting curve that wipes out the middle part of sequences, but I normally save that process for important info like foreign language vocabulary and names).

 

Study The Layout In Advance To

Maximize Memory Potential

 

Knowing that I’ll be limiting my choices to these areas in advance, I studied the layout on the map before entering the Forbidden City. With a plan for using only a few select spots, I released my mind of the burden of capturing it all and absorbed most of the site on autopilot.

For the entrance, core building and exit, however, I photographed and sketched the layouts to help substantiate them in my memory.

The most important step?

Follow-up.

What does follow-up involve? Rehearsing the Memory Palace right away using the tools of Recall Rehearsal, followed by using the Memory Palace to memorize some information.

For example, as soon as possible after leaving many Memory Palaces on our honeymoon, I asked my fiancee to help me understand some new Chinese vocabulary and then used the new Memory Palaces to encode the sounds and meanings of the words. I sometimes did this fully impromptu without creating a Memory Palace first, which is also an option:

This Memory Palace Technique

Is Good For the Entire Family

 

Whether you’re going to the Acropolis or the Empire State Building, there’s a way to efficiently turn these locations into Memory Palaces without disrupting the flow of your vacation. If you have children and are interested in memory techniques for kids, you can set the foundation for a life of learning with greater ease by helping them maximize their impressionable minds with the global real estate travel puts in their hands.

And if you use the Memory Palaces to learn elements of the local language while visiting the city, all the better. Even if you just learn how to say good morning, good afternoon and good evening to the hotel staff, you’ll make your vacation much richer.

Seriously. Memorizing a few niceties for use in restaurants will endear many staff members to you and this leads to better advice and more patient explanations when you have questions. You’ll also have more fun on your trip.

The trick is not to get nervous about making mistakes and simply open your mouth and speak from your beautiful powers of enhanced recall while your newest Memory Palaces are still fresh.

I hope you take these tips to heart and start enjoying your future vacations at a deeper level by making them both more memorable and more suitable for servicing your Memory Palace needs for years to come.

The post How To Remember More Of Your Vacations With A Memory Palace appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

How to Create an Impromptu Memory Palace With Ease

[image error]Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could create an impromptu Memory Palace on the go? I’m talking about a responsive memory tool that would let you hear a word or phrase and instantly learn, remember and then recall it forever just by thinking of that place.

Here’s the good news:

Creating an impromptu Memory Palace is fun and easy to do. You just need to know the principles of the Magnetic Memory Method, and you’re good to go.

You can create an impromptu Memory Palace in a restaurant as discussed in this video:

Or you can create your first impromptu Memory Palace in a park.

Since park Memory Palaces are a bit more challenging here are the basics using 秋天 qiūtiān (Mandarin Chinese for “autumn”) as an example. Although I struggled with the pronunciation at the beginning (and even experienced a few rare seconds of frustration), the techniques set the stage for success using the rest of The Big Five Of Language Learning.

Scan The Scene For A Suitable Location

 

If you’re familiar with the method of loci, then you know that impromptu Memory Palace elements are everywhere. But you also know that not all Memory Palace stations are created equal.

For example, stations in obscure and hard to measure places really don’t serve as well as stations with fixed features.

Corners, for example, serve as bulletproof stations because they’re fixed. You can instantly zoom to them in your mind. Think of the corner of a park, for example, and BANG, your mind Magnetically zooms there.

The weak memorizer, however, chooses loosey-goosey stations, like “halfway between those clumps of trees,” or places even less certain.

 

Focus On Solid And Certain Stations For Total Success

 

Walking through a park with April discussing German phrases she’s learning, 秋天 came up. My eyes instantly searched for a place to create and secure a mnemonic image.

At that point, I had no idea what image I would create. But I let a sense of relaxation overcome me and trusted the process to do its work.

And, of course, the Magnetic Memory Method delivered (it always does).

 

Combine Your Impromptu Memory Palace

Stations With No-Brainer Associations

 

Of course, you’ve got to be willing to make mistakes, which is exactly what I did.

Why?

Because to memorize the sound and meaning of 秋天 qiūtiān, I saw a giant 9 and yo-yo because 九 jiǔ (nine) sounds similar to my ear.

However, the similarity is a fantasy in my mind that led to one of my classic pronunciation errors. Nonetheless, by associating the tones of 秋天 with the Major Method and using the word as often as possible in sentences, the work of getting it right every time is underway.

Notice too that by writing this post, making the video and the podcast episode, I’m practicing The Big Five Of Language Learning.

Should you go through all these motions online just to learn a word and practice it?

Not necessarily. But you should do it at a personal level to utilize all your representational systems and learn to speak your language.

 

Finish The Impromptu Memory Palace Later

 

The cool thing about a small impromptu Memory Palace like for 秋天 qiūtiān is that there are 3 more terms needed to complete my knowledge of the words for the seasons in Chinese.

冬天 dōngtiān for Winter

春天 chūntiān for Spring

夏天 xiàtiān for Summer

In this case, I used four trees in the park. Each tree served as the station for one of the seasons.

冬天 dōngtiān. I won’t tell you what’s going on with this image, but let’s just say I’m not using a ding dong in combination with a snowy tree.

春天 chūntiān. For this I see Chewbacca chewing on a twenty dollar bill before spitting it out as rusty springs into the tea cup with burning yen.

夏天 xiàtiān. The t-sah-ya sound makes it hard to get a clear image in play, but I have the band Twisted Sister playing Yahtzee with miniature, but blazing hot suns and that works great.

In each case, the goal is to use the mnemonic imagery to bring back the sound and meaning of the words in the same stroke. The point of the impromptu Memory Palace location is to have a mental place to go for recalling the meaning and for playing around with the words in sentences.

For example, “I like autumn” can be changed to, “It is now autumn” and “Tomorrow it will be autumn.” There are countless variations and it’s important to run through as many as you possibly can to help the key vocabulary words stick in place in the context of a sentence.

After that, it’s just a matter of repeating the process with new words and new Memory Palaces.

 

Impromptu Memory Palaces Are Not For Everything

 

At the end of the day, you need to pick your battles. Impromptu Memory Palaces serve small sets of information like the seasons or days of the week well. But for anything larger than ten pieces of information, you might struggle.

Why?

Because the problem with Impromptu Memory Palaces is that you have to recreate them in your mind at the same time you’re recreating the images. But if you use Memory Palaces based on real locations, you reduce the mental load. If you’re really good with Memory Palaces, you eliminate the load altogether.

If you don’t already know how to create the perfect Memory Palace, please consider completing this free Memory Kit. It will help you get the most out of the process.

But here’s the thing:

Nothing happens unless you take action, so please be sure to give this technique a try. Post any questions you have below, and understand that the best questions come from experience and struggling a little bit with the process. Please do not overthink mnemonics. The answers come from taking action and using the techniques

Always.

Further Resources

You can .

Or you can make an impromptu Memory Palace in a restaurant and then practice what you’ve memorized out in the rain. Just make sure to also perform proper Recall Rehearsal.

Mandarin Chinese Mnemonics and Morning Memory Secrets.

The post How to Create an Impromptu Memory Palace With Ease appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

3 Simple Exercises That Make Your Life Worth Remembering

[image error]It sucks to think about death, doesn’t it? You’re busy enjoying life, after all.

Or are you?

Admit it. It’s not always fun and games. Sometimes life really gets you down.

That’s where thinking about death can be strangely uplifting.

In fact, there are powerfully positive and empowering things that can happen when you put time into the notion that one day, you’re not going to be here anymore.

For example, by putting your affairs into order, you can live better now because you’re free from worrying about what will happen after you die. Not enough people put time into this, leaving chaos after their demise that tears families apart. And that can make the memory of your life a bitter pill to swallow for years to come.

But that’s not the direction I want to take us in. Rather, these three simple activities will make your life more memorable starting now. All you have to do is give them a try and you’ll be amazed by how they help.

 

1. Imagine Your Funeral

 

Sounds grim, I know. But once you get into it, seeing and hearing your friends, family and colleagues acknowledge your passing creates perspective and insight that can improve your happiness.

This brain game is best played with pen and paper. Make a list of two friends, two family members and two colleagues (or fellow students if you’re still in school).

Next, write down in their voices one positive memory each person will share about you at your funeral. It could be a story or just a description of an attribute.

Focus on the positive. Don’t invite haters to your funeral. Really feel the positive sentiments and enjoy the warmth they create.

I read this weird little exercise in Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds. It’s highly recommended if you’d like some of the scientific background behind this positivity technique.

 

2. All Life’s Profoundest Pleasures Are Found Here

 

You probably already know The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

There’s Mathematical Truth To Frost’s Claim:

You’re much more likely to live a more interesting life simply by taking alternative paths.

And the sooner the better. As we age, many of us grow more conservative. Not because getting old switches on some kind of political gene. It’s because the more assets we gather, the more protective we become of them.

And the biological need to protect the status quo can be irrationally strong. So strong that people have refused to flee volcanic danger zones driven by conservative inertia (this problem relates to social inertia, which is well worth learning about).

 

Live Life Like It’s A Gameshow

 

The Road Not Taken principle relates to something called The Monty Hall Problem. It refers to situations of choice in which it is counterintuitively beneficial to change your mind.

The core issue isn’t the math, however. The real point of interest is that most people will stick with their original decision despite the benefits of traveling the road not taken. I’ve seen this play out hundreds of times as a magician with a simple question that leads over 90% of people to stick with their original decision.

Merely by asking people if they’d like to change their mind and even offering them handsome sums of money if they do, I create the illusion of complete and utter free will because I know that the vast majority will stick with their original decision.

 

 

When The Sane Choices In Life Are Actually Insane …

 

I’ve seen The Monty Hall principle play out in my personal life too. During a difficult time when I couldn’t find a university teaching gig, I applied to get high school teaching certification and did the necessary voluntary teaching in schools to qualify.

As a former university professor, this is not what I wanted to do in life, but I felt driven to teach. And it was taking action, which was far better than sitting around and biting my fingernails.

Then, out of the blue came the invitation to rejoin The Outside, record an album and go on tour. At that point in my career, doing something like that was insane. Nearly every person I talked with about the option agreed, and yet I knew the Monty Hall Problem and let it guide me.

And the reality is that the traditional path was truly the insane one. Plus …

 

The Sane Choice Would Have Been

Totally, 100% Forgettable!

 

Think about it:

Had I gone the traditional route, I would have taken on student debt and locked myself for years in classrooms with students unprepared for the kinds of thoughts I think. It would have been bad for everyone, and that’s not to mention all the teacher’s strikes and worries about a pension I’d go through.

But conservative forces in society were so strong that I almost went for the traditional career. Because I changed my mind, however, I’ve wound up still getting to teach, but in multiples I never would have imagined possible. I’ve been around the world and have over a million free downloads, a dozen bestselling books and tens of thousands of people studying and using the Magnetic Memory Method every single day.

I don’t say that to brag. It’s just the consequence of making a counterintuitive choice that was mathematically bound to create a better outcome. And I’m facing another in the near future that involves living in yet another country. This time I may decide for the conservative choice, but … Probably not.

 

3: This Simple Exercise Will Stop Your

Life From Being Boring

 

One way to instantly make your life more memorable is to document it. You can use writing, podcasting, video or various combinations of media. The point is to get it down. Even if it’s boring.

And quite frankly, it might just be boring at the start. If you’ve never done it before, talking about yourself might seem excruciating.

But the reality is that by going through the exercise on a consistent basis, you’ll develop a talent for spotting the memorable. And there are many things happening every day worth your attention.

For example, two days ago April and I heard a cellist playing Bach in an art gallery. The next day I noticed a store I’d never seen before. Just a few hours ago I observed a heavily tattooed man, including much of his face, playing with his kid in the park.

I wrote all of these things down. And the act of writing the observations down spawns more observation which in turn creates more things to write about.

All wealth comes from writing, so please be sure to take up this practice. Along with envisioning your funeral and taking the roads not taken, observing and writing will help you live a more memorable life.

The best part is that you can also journal with your friends. Jonathan Levi and I have done that recently in Israel just to talk about our memory improvement projects and memorize together in real time:

But whether you journal on paper or video, with other people or alone, put all of the exercises you’ve just learned together and you truly will have an amazing life.

One worth remembering.

The post 3 Simple Exercises That Make Your Life Worth Remembering appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

5 Brain Exercises That Ensure Memory Improvement

[image error]Lots of people do brain exercises, often in the form of brain games. You’ve probably even tried a few, right?

That’s all fine and dandy, but there’s a catch:

Playing brain exercise games on your “smart phone” is not necessarily brain exercise. Not by a long shot.

Brain Exercises Or Brain Thinners?

 

In fact, some of those brain games don’t exercise your brain at all. Rather, they train your brain to get good at completing tasks within the world of those apps. The mental fitness doesn’t apply to other parts of your life.

Bottom line:

If you’re exercising your brain on an abstract level but not directing the fitness at specific life improvement goals, you’re missing out. Your brain fitness must be targeted at specific goals so you get tangible results.

And if you’d like brain exercises that do improve your mind and give you a great mental workout that matters, give the following easy exercises a try. I promise they’ll be fun and give you a memory improvement boost in a short period of time.

 

1. The 4-Details Observation Exercise

 

Gary Small talks about memorizing four details of people you encounter out in public.

For example, let’s say someone is wearing a gray sweater, black hat, red belt and green shoes. The goal is to observe the details first and then recall them later.

Some scientists call brain exercises like these “passive memory training.” They’re passive because you’re not using any special memory techniques. You’re just asking your mind to do what it was designed to do: remember.

Why does this matter?

It matters because we don’t ask our minds to practice observation enough. For that reason, we fail to observe.

So if you’d like to be a better observer of the world around you, this exercise will help. It’s also scalable, meaning that you can start with observing just one person per day. Once you’ve gotten good at recalling four details of just one person, you can add more information or more people (or both).

If you like, you can also notice details about buildings, cars, movies or series, foods that improve memory, etc. But focusing on people is the more potent because being observant of others around you is a great social skill.

 

2. Number Brain Exercises

That Skyrocket Your Concentration

 

I can’t emphasize this enough: numeracy is a powerful skill. It’s something I work on myself as often as possible, both with and without memory techniques in play.

“Add 3 Minus 7” is a fun brain exercise you can try today. To get started, all you do is pick any 3-digit number. Then, add 3 to that digit 3 times. Then minus 7 from the new number 7 times.

Repeat the process at least 5 times and pick a new 3-digit number the next time. You can also start with a 4-digit number and use other numbers to play with. For example, you could start with 1278 and add 12, 12 times and minus 11, 11 times.

It’s up to you and the amount of numbers dictate the level of challenge. This brain exercise also strengthens your working memory because of the amount of detail you need to hold in mind to complete it.

 

3. Repeat What People Say In Your Mind

 

We all know in our hearts that no one is really listening when we speak. And that’s sad.

But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be another person who is just nodding your head like a puppet while actually thinking about something else.

You can train yourself to focus on what people are telling you and remember everything they say.

It all begins by creating presence in the moment in an easy way: Follow the words being spoken to you by repeating them in your mind.

For example, imagine that someone is saying the following to you:

“Tomorrow I want to go to a movie called Memory Maverick. It’s about a guy who cannot forget. He’s hired by a group known only as ‘The Agency’ to infiltrate a competitor. But once the hero learns the secrets, he doesn’t want to hand them over. But since he can’t forget, The Agency starts making his life miserable.”

All you would need to do to complete this brain exercise is repeat everything in your mind. You’ll automatically remember more by doing this.

To remember even more, you can create pictures in your head. For example, you might see an image of Mel Gibson as he looked in the movie Maverick trying to remember something. You might get a picture in your mind of an agency building and scenes of evil men in suits torturing the hero.

It can be a bit awkward to repeat back information like this to people to practice your concentration and memory powers, but you can write an email later from memory: “Hey, did you manage to see Memory Maverick? That whole thing with infiltrating ‘The Agency’ for those secrets and not wanting to hand them over sure sounded cool. What did they wind up doing to make the hero’s life more miserable?”

For more brain exercises on remembering what people are saying, check out this interview with Jim Samuels on the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. He has some great ideas and the benefits include:

Being more present.
Remembering more of what was said.
Showing people that you’re interested in them and their lives.
Easing conflicts when they arise because you remember the issues in greater detail.

You feel better about your connection to people because you’re really with them.

 

4. The Metronome-Clapping Exercise

 

Back in grad school, I had a great professor named Matthew Clark. For some reason, he told our class in Classical Literature about a great concentration exercise that I’ve practiced ever since.

It’s simple: You put on a metronome at a slow speed and then practice “covering the click.”

I don’t think this brain exercise helps memory in any direct way, but it’s excellent for improving concentration and presence. Both concentration and presence are skills we all need and the more we have, the more we can remember by default.

The better you get at this exercise, the longer the amount of time between clicks you should place. To accurately cover the metronome with a minute between clicks would be impressive!

 

5. Create A Memory Palace

 

The ultimate brain exercise on the planet is also the easiest. It involves nothing more than a simple drawing that follows some simple principles.

Why is creating a Memory Palace such a powerful exercise?

First, creating a Memory Palace draws upon your spatial memory. As far as brain exercises go, this one works kind of in reverse. Why? Because you’re accessing cues that are usually blueprinted on your mind outside of your awareness.

Think about it: You’ve rarely gone into a new home or store with the conscious intent of memorizing its features. Yet, if you think back to the last home of a friend you visited, you can probably recall an insane amount of detail. Creating a Memory Palace lets you exercise that inborn ability.

Second, creating a Memory Palace is creating a tool that you can use for life. Once you have one and you’ve mastered using it, you can create dozens more.

And if you can do that, you can do great things with your memory, like how Matteo Ricci learned Chinese in record time. You can also remember names at events with ease and accomplish any goal in which memory plays a role.

And what goal doesn’t involve memory?

If you’d like to learn how to create a Memory Palace following the good rules of the Magnetic Memory Method, my FREE Memory Improvement Kit will take you through the entire process. It includes videos, worksheets and more to get you up to speed on this important talent.

 

Improve Your Mind With

Brain Exercises And Conquer Any Problem

 

At the end of the day, brain exercises are best when they help you solve problems. Forgetting important details, for example, harms us day in and day out. You now have a brain exercise that will assist you with that.

Not being able to focus on numbers leads us into making all kinds of mistakes. The simple game you’ve just learned is just one step towards improved numeracy skills and a better memory.

You’ve also learned to listen better, be more present and develop concentration for extended periods of time. In many ways, repeating the words of others in your mind or “covering the click” are forms of meditation, a skill known to improve memory.

 

You Now Have The Best Of The Best

 

Finally, you have the opportunity to create a Memory Palace. This simple, ancient invention will also improve your concentration while letting you remember anything. I’m not sure I believe in left brain exercises versus right brain exercises, but I’m confident that if such things exist, the Memory Palace covers them both.

Combined, all of these mind fitness activities will improve your life. They all serve as great brain exercises for kids too, so please pass them on to the young people in your life. On that note, they’re also great brain exercises for seniors, so don’t ignore that branch of your family and social circles either. People of all ages want to keep mentally fit!

 

Turn Your Dream Of Operating

A Fully Fit Mind Into Reality

 

When you regularly complete brain exercises, you’ll feel filled with pride. Few people have the gumption to take consistent action, after all.

Your commitment to what Tony Buzan calls “mental literacy” means you should celebrate. Consistently completing brain exercises should be rewarded, so be sure to factor that in.

You don’t have to think hard about giving yourself the perfect gift, though. The brain fitness that comes from regularly completing brain exercises is its own reward.

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