You simply must decide on an object that each number from 1 to 10 reminds you of. Then for any list, just associate each item with the object representing its number, using a little scene or vignette. This is a widely used technique, described in many manuals. It’s very simple, and your digit sequence can be reused endlessly for new lists. I find it the handiest mnemonic device, and I use it almost every day for something – not just lists, but also things like PIN numbers and phone numbers. With practice, you can use it to memorize your credit card numbers.

Often, people choose a candle to represent 1 and a swan to represent 2. I generalize from these items a bit for variety – a candle burns, so for me, any use of fire represents the first item of the list; same with 2=swan – I generalize to any bird or even just “flying.” The image I use for number 3 is a naked, pregnant woman (she doesn’t have to be naked, but the more interesting or dramatic the object, the better). Somewhere I read that the number 4 reminded someone of a sail of a sailboat, so in my system, a boat or ship of any kind (even a spaceship such as the Starship Enterprise) serves to represent the fourth place. The number 5 looks like a hook, so I use a hook to represent that number. 6 looks like a coiled snake with raised head, so a snake represents that number. The first thing 7 reminds me of is a high cliff, so item 7 is generally in midair screaming for its life or dangling by its fingertips or some such (remember, something dramatic – make a little story). Some people use an hourglass to represent the number 8, and this works for me – but, by extension, I use any clock or timepiece. 9 is tough; some see in it a balloon on a string or stick, but to me, it looks like a big wide-eyed child grinning, so item 9 in my lists are always somehow incorporated into a mouth or into a grin (given a choice, positive images are better than negative ones; the mind more readily goes toward positive imagery). And 10 is often represented as a table setting, and that’s what I use.

You can extend the list indefinitely by combining number-symbols together in sentence-like strings (see below); although for longer lists, I might switch to another format such as using the alphabet (simply think of a friend or person whose name starts with each letter, and for each item to be remembered, create a story/scene involving that item and that person).

Try it today. Over the phone your spouse rattles off a short list of items you need to pick up from the grocery store on your way home: “Get eggs, beer, Tylenol, and toilet paper. Oh yeah, also a few containers of lemon yogurt.”

The eggs are burning, popping and sizzling, frying right in their container, which has somehow burst into flames (the more little sensory details and dramatic elements that pop quickly and easily to mind, the better); a crowd gathers by the bank of a pond watching a white swan flop around drunkenly on the water, vomiting (you don’t need to be overly specific, I find: The reminder of alcohol—i.e. the swan’s drunkenness—will be enough to point you in the right direction, toward the beer aisle); a naked pregnant woman struggles to open a child-proof cap (again, anything related to pills or medicine will probably be enough to point you to the Tylenol); a tall three-masted schooner has been tee-peed in the night, toilet paper draped everywhere and the crew tries to get it cleaned up under the eyes of the angry captain; the last scene of Jaws – Roy Scheider tosses a cup of yoghurt into the shark’s mouth and shoots it, causing an explosion of yellow yoghurt and shark (hook connected to fishing and being in a fish’s mouth, but the shape of a typical yoghurt container connected it to the air tank in Jaws, so…).

To use the system to remember strings of numbers like a PIN number, create a story that links together the digits in a sequence. I find it helpful to think of a four-digit sequence as a sentence, in which the first digit is always the main subject-noun, the second is the verb or action, the third is the direct object of the sentence or something affected by the action of the subject, and the fourth is the place or setting. So, to remember 4168, I would just think of a burning sailboat sitting in a desert, which is actually the sand of a giant hourglass, with a bunch of snakes slithering overboard to escape the heat.

The first few times you do it, it will probably take a little longer to come up with associations for the items and numbers than the time it would take to just write them down; but with a little practice it becomes easy, so that eventually even time, not just paper, is saved. The real point is not to save paper, of course, or to prepare for some future in which books have been outlawed, as in Fahrenheit 451. Hopefully this will never happen. The point is to learn to train your mind, make it stronger, more flexible, and more receptive.

 
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