Would you like to be able to easily remember the names of everyone you meet? Or to memorize and recall directions with ease? How about being able to study a lot less and  remember a lot more? The key to building an airtight memory is to change the way you go about memorizing things. Our brains are very good at memorizing concrete images and stories, but not so great at memorizing abstract bits of information like names, dates, and directions. So how should we go about memorizing abstract things when we have to? By making them concrete and incorporating them into stories! The key to doing this is to memorize everything using visualization. Here’s how:

Maximizing Memory Principles

1. Make Everything You Want to Remember into a Mental Movie

We’re going to ask you to expend a little effort here in order to prove a point. Work with us, and we promise it will all prove worth your while.

Take 90 seconds (time yourself) and memorize the following list of words in order, then look away from this page and write down this list as accurately as you can:

• Candy, row, table, run, dish, black, afternoon, clock, paste, rifle, meter, explosion, girl, bike, meatloaf, pencil, hospital, birthday, glass, shell.

How many word did you remember, and were they generally in the right order? If you got more than 12, with eight in order, you have a decent memory.

Now we’re going to try the same exercise, but with a twist. We’re going to give you another list of 20 words to memorize. But this time, instead of trying to memorize the list, we’re providing you with a story that uses these 20 words. Your job is to turn that story into a movie in your mind. Again, only give yourself 90 seconds both to read the list and the story. Critically, when you read the story, really picture everything happening around you in your mind. Picture the higihlighted words in lavish detail and animate them - see the action in the story taking place. Really put yourself in the story, and try to experience it. You are a player in this story, not an observer.

Here are the words:

• townhouse, cave, housecat, pink, gun, quarter, tree, stone, mouth, car, north pole, orange magic wand, Africa, taxi, needle, ocean, sunrise, scream, empire state building

Picture a townhouse, but where the front door should be, there’s a deep, dark cave. In the cave is a huge housecat – like 20 feet tall, which is bright, neon pink. The cat is holding a gun – a 44 magnum – in its little paw. It takes aim at a shiny quarter which is growing right off of the branch of a tree. The crazy thing about this tree is that it is made of solid stone. The cat fires, and just as the gun goes off, the tree opens down the middle to reveal a startlingly human-like mouth. A car comes screaming out of the mouth of the tree. You jump in, and instantly arrive at the north pole, where there’s an actual barber’s pole sitting in the ground with a sign saying “north pole” on it. You sit down and eat a huge orange (at least 2 feet in diameter) and, since you’re not a big fan of freezing, you whip out your magic wand and whisk yourself away. You arrive in Africa, and jump in a taxi. While inside, you take out a huge needle full of what looks like salt water. You aim it outside, push the plunger, and the whole ocean comes out just outside of the cab. At this point, the sun rises over the ocean, and an ear curdling scream splits the air. The empire state building them bursts up from under the water.

Now try to write down the 20 words in order. We bet you do a whole lot better.  If you didn’t, take our word for it – it’s just because you haven’t gotten the hang of this technique yet. And if you didn't do any better on the second list of words just now, try to recall both lists tomorrow. At that point, if you've really visualized teh second story,  the difference will be night and day.

Critically, words, facts, or concepts that you learn thorugh visualization stick in your long term memory, instead of leaking out after a few hours. By giving you a story and asking you to experience it  in your mind, we took an unrelated stream of words that is very difficult  to memorize normally, and made it relatively easy to recall. This is possible because our brains think in pictures, not in words.

Memorizing by creating mental movies is a powerful and efficient way to commit information to memory. You can use this technique for just about anything you have to memorize; History, science, grocery lists, whatever. And the more you use it, the easier it gets. Practice making mental movies for everything you have to memorize for a month or so, and it will become second nature. Some tips on making the most of this process follow -