Memory can lead to the performance of many amazing feats. Take for example the story of Mozart visiting Rome in 1770, when he was 14 years old, and he heard Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel. The half-hour-long piece of music was considered so special that the Vatican banned its publication, but after the concert Mozart wrote the entire piece of music from memory. Or, more recently, champions of memory have set world records that seem miraculous to ordinary people. These people are often assumed to have extraordinary brains or to be amazingly intelligent. However, in 2002, scientists put this assumption to the test and conducted a series of tests on highly ranked memorizers at the annual World Memory Championships. The tests revealed that the brains of the memory champions showed no differences from those of ordinary people. However, it was discovered that nine of the ten memory champions simply used a technique called “Loci’s method”, which dates back to ancient Greece. This method is based on location and imagination. Therefore, it was concluded that a good memory is simply a skill and a skill that can be learned at any age.
The fundamental principle of memory techniques is to link what is to be remembered with some other idea; this is known as association. When your memory has meaning, your brain assigns it a label that makes it much easier to retrieve. A similar process is accomplished when you view something in context or linked to some other idea that provides a label for the idea. If you think of your memory as a library, it’s clearly much easier to find a particular memory if it has a tag attached to it. You’ll be surprised how dramatically you can improve your ability to remember things if you use combinations of association, vitality, and imagination.
The best technique that encourages you to use association and imagination is the Mind Map. Mind maps were invented by Tony Buzan in the 1960s, although mind map learning principles have been around for hundreds of years and have been used by some of the world’s leading thinkers. Tony Buzan claims it’s the ultimate thinking tool: a creative and powerful thinking tool that literally “maps” your brain. Mind maps are an ideal tool to use as a memory improvement tool, not only is it extremely simple but it can have an immediate impact on memory, creativity and your ability to focus. Mind maps have a natural structure that radiates from the center and uses lines, symbols, words, and images according to a set of natural, brain-friendly rules. A long list of boring information can be turned into colourful, memorable and highly organized diagrams that reflect the brain’s natural way of thinking and encourage synergistic thinking.
Imagination and association are the two fundamental principles that make mind maps so effective. By developing creative skills, you’re not only improving your ability to come up with innovative ideas, but you’re also, by default, improving your ability to remember things. This is because creativity and memory are vertically identical mental processes; both work better when you use imagination and association.
A quick guide: how to make a mind map:
1) Gather all the information you need: your research, a set of colored pens, and a large blank sheet of paper.
2) Draw a simple image or symbol to represent your central idea in the center of the page.
3) Think of the main points or themes of your Mind Map, radiate your key themes from the central image as branches by adding a keyword that represents that theme.
4) Now explore your main branches with sub-branches/thoughts. Add single words to each sub-branch. Let your ideas flow freely, adding a new branch for each thought.
5) Use your colored pens and add images to make your map vibrant and exciting.
6) Alternatively, you can produce your mind map using the exciting new mind mapping software that has recently become available, for example Tony Buzan’s iMindMap. By using software to facilitate mind mapping, it allows users to create truly personal and organic mind maps without restricting the thought process in any way, while incorporating all the principles of the mind mapping technique.
Once you’ve created your mind map, you’ll notice that instead of having pages and pages of boring linear notes, you have a single page that contains all the key points you need to remember. You’ll instantly see the connections and links between different ideas and thoughts and can help you quickly understand the big picture as it’s represented on the piece of paper in front of you. Second, in creating your mind map, you have used both sides of your brain. People have a wide range of intellectual and creative abilities that they only partially use. However, Mind Mapping harnesses the potential of the right (creative) and left (analytical) sides of the brain. Furthermore, if both the left and right brains are used, both sides become stronger, engaging with each other to reinforce their creative output and association. resulting in a markedly improved memory.