Monday, October 02, 2006

Improve your memory (part 1)

As a business psychologist, I meet lots of people. I meet new clients in big companies and small organisations, and at conferences and networking events all the time. But I have to confess that I'm not very good at remembering people's names.

Which is a shame as I'm a psychologist and know exactly what techniques I should be using to improve my memory!

So I thought I'd start to share some of the techniques that research shows us can help to improve our memories.

One of the best techniques is to process names and start making links from a name to other information we have in our brain. The more you think about a name, the more likely you are to remember it.

For example, if you are meeting someone called Nick, you might summon up a mental image of yourself shaving and giving yourself a shaving nick - a small cut. To further encourage remembering his name, you might think that it sounds like a pick. Then you might summon up the mental image of a pick-axe in your head. And that it sounds like a tick - so see yourself drawing a big tick on a piece of paper in your mind's eye. And so on. The more links and cues you use to process a name mentally, the better you will get at remembering it.

Trust me, I'm a psychologist. So just go try it.