“Paying attention, along with visualizing and associating are the cornerstones of my memory system. Learning how to improve your use of these processes will go a long way toward boosting your memory – and your intelligence.”

– Frank Felberbaum

The following are the three steps you can use to become better at remembering things in the four key zones of business information:

Step 1: Pay better attention to begin with

Before you can remember something, you first have to observe it and take notice of it. Most people gloss over important people, facts and concepts without really paying attention. If you don’t notice something in the first place, you won’t be able to remember it. Simply increasing your mental awareness in new situations will increase how much you remember without doing anything else. To become better at paying attention in new situations:

Observe. Look for patterns or anomalies. The way things repeat or when something unusual stands out will help you to remember that new piece of information.

Concentrate. Do so deliberately and exclusively on the important new information you’re being given. Choose to focus on what you need to pay attention to and stop your mind from wandering. In the context, multitasking is an enemy to remembering something. Focus entirely on the new information before you.

Trigger. You can magnify your ability to concentrate by using a “memory trigger” – a physical gesture which will remind you when it’s time to concentrate on absorbing the new piece of information in front of you. This needs to be something simple and unobtrusive like crossing your fingers, for example.

Sync. Keep your eyes and your mind working together. If you’re looking at one thing but thinking about something entirely different, you’re naturally going to lose concentration. Everyone takes in visual information at a much faster rate than others can talk at so this will happen quite frequently in conversation.

“The more you trust yourself, the better your brain will work. So relax, focus on the positive – and pay attention. You may be astonished by how much more you can remember.”
– Frank Felberbaum

Step 2: Convert information into visual images

You always think in pictures whether you realize it or not. This is a universal attribute of the human brain. Therefore, to remember anything, convert the information into a mental picture. You can then use that picture as an index and a memory trigger to unlock your recall of that information in the future.

The more proficient you become at translating key points of information into vivid visual images, the better your memory will operate and function. To enhance your performance in this area:

Relax. Don’t try and force things. Instead, have a little fun. Develop some really zany, exaggerated mental images which are unforgettable.

Practice. You can become much better at visualizing things with a little consistent practice. During your downtime – when you’re waiting in line to be served, stuck in traffic or on hold listening to some bland elevator music – work at enhancing your creativity.

While admittedly most business information comes in through your eyes, the other senses can also evoke powerful memories and mental images which can be harnessed to improve your memory. If you think back through the memories of your life, you may find each one already has clues from the other senses integrated in with it.

Again, if you practice on a regular basis paying more attention to sensory experiences, your mental images can come to life and become intensely vivid for you. This is exactly what you want because the better you become at generating mental images, the better your business memory will become as well.

Step 3: Connect new images with old images

We all remember information that means something to us and forget everything else. With this in mind, the best way to remember something new is to connect it in some way to something old. That way when you want to pull out the new data, all you have to do is remember the old. This is the idea behind the practice of association as an aid to a better memory.

While it’s difficult to remember isolated facts, everyone remembers bits of information which are meaningful. The key to increasing your ability to remember is to make the information mean something to you. Some suggestions:

Enhance awareness: Everyone makes little mental connections all the time, usually without even being aware of it. This can range from the simple: “Your name is Bob, the same as my son’s name” to the more obvious: “Oh, your office is on the seventh floor. Seven is a lucky number.” All you’re trying to do is to make this process conscious and purposeful so as to maximize your memory.

Create stories. Stories are very powerful memory aids. Not only do they help you visualize new information but they also increase your mental associations. Great stories are very valuable business tools. If you can develop mini-stories which have embedded within them the key bits of information you need, you create a surefire way to remember more. To increase your ability in this area:

Practice. Deliberately go out of your way to create stories from the various chunks of information you need to recall often.

The Four Key Zones of Business Information

Zone 1 – People Information

To become better at remembering the names of the new people you meet, use three basic techniques:

·         Scan their faces for key features of famous people.

·         Create a vivid visual image or “mini-movie” that triggers their name.

·         Mentally associate that name with the face it belongs to.

Note that in this process, you’ll need to draw on the standard set of skills – pay attention, visualize and associate. This technique will be easier for people who have names you’re very familiar with – those of politicians, well known brand names, common objects, movie stars, famous composers or musicians, etc. In these cases, associating their name with a visual image should be simple and easy to do.  

Zone 2 – Spoken Information

To increase your ability to absorb and then recall the information you’ve heard in business meetings, use three techniques:

Define your intentions in advance. To motivate yourself so you pay careful and deliberate attention to what’s being spoken about, it’s important that you take some time in advance thinking about the benefits you’ll receive. In a business context, these benefits usually are along the lines of saving time and money, enhancing your standing in the company, acquiring new customers, or improving customer service.

With this in mind, as you get new bits of information, keep asking yourself how you’ll use this information. This will help you focus on the key elements. Then try to ascertain where this new information fits. This helps you be creative in thinking about applying the new ideas. Finally and most importantly, decide who else would be interested in the information. This might be a window of opportunity to build and grow your own value to your clients.

Ask good questions. To become an active listener and pay more attention to what’s being said, you need to ask some probing questions. Ideally, you want to be able to ask these questions aloud but sometimes you can only ask these questions in your thinking.

In addition to asking clarifying questions and engaging in some two-way debate, periodically summarize what you’re hearing back to the speaker or repeat what you’ve heard back to the speaker and ask them to verify you heard them correctly. Then pass on what you’ve heard to another person or another group of people using your own words. Teaching others whatever you’ve just learned always brings what you’ve heard into better focus for you.

Convert verbal information into memorable visual images. As you take what you’re hearing and form some mental visual images about what’s being discussed, you significantly improve your chances of being able to recall this information at a later stage. There is no single “correct” way to do this because everyone’s mind works differently.

“Ironically, the key to recalling spoken information is not to worry too much about forgetting it. Knowing why you want to listen and trusting that you can remember what’s important to you will take you a very long way in improving your memory for spoken information.”
– Frank Felberbaum

Zone 3 – Written Information

This again comes back to the three basic components of memory – pay attention, visualize and then associate. There are several techniques you can choose from to increase your performance in this area:

Memory Palace In your mind’s eye, create a palace. Each of its rooms will be dedicated to one specific theme. As you read something important, boil it down to a key point and then think of an object that will remind you of that point. You then place that object in the applicable room and integrate it into the mini-movie you’re creating for each room. This is a great way to remember the key points you want to cover in a speech.

Numerical Matrix. Once you’re very familiar and comfortable with how you handle numbers, you can mentally link your number images with mini-movies of the information you need to remember. This is the way you can commit to memory lists of regulations or other items.

Sherlock Holmes. With this technique, you keep boiling every paragraph you read down to one key word or point. You then create a mini-movie which includes visual images for each of those key points on a page. You can then embed the page number somewhere within that mini-movie.

Conceptual Pyramids. Draw a pyramid. Write your main idea in the middle. Then, at each point of the triangle, write three of the key aspects of the main idea. You will then have a compact visual layout of the nine key points you want to remember or discuss which will be much easier to recall than a numbered list.

Word Encoding. If you’re trying to remember a specific word (like a new product name for example) within a document, take that word and create its own mental image, and then create a mini-movie in which that mental image interacts with other items.

Memory Train. Break the information you want to remember down into 10 key ideas, an introduction and a conclusion. Then visualize a child’s model train. Your introduction will be on the engine and the key points will then be on the wagons that follow, one to each wagon. Now develop a mini-movie which has the image for each wagon connecting to the image for the wagon that follows it.

If you’re working with foreign words and phrases in your job, you might also create some “sounds-like” mental pictures in your own language and then associate these with the foreign words you commonly use. If you mentally link a sound and a meaning to those foreign words, you’ll quickly be able to learn enough to get by. You’ll also be able to win some kudos from your business associates by showing you respect their language.
 

“Whether your business creates words, goods or services, you’ll find it useful to remember what you’ve read. Not only will your recall of specific documents impress your clients, colleagues, and supervisors, but you’ll also find as you practice this system, your ability to focus, concentrate, and apply information to new situations will vastly improve.” – Frank Felberbaum

Note: The fourth key zone of business information is Numerical Information. The treatment of this particular segment is quite abstract and complex. If you would like to review the information pertaining to numerical memory, please go to Numerical Info

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