Developing a Razor Sharp Memory (Part 3) 

By Daniel Theyagu

In part II, I showed how to remember a series of items in a linear sequential manner.  However there may be occasions when you may have to recall information in a random order.

 

If you want to be able to recall information in a random order you need to use a system called the Numerical Pegging System.

 

The Numerical Pegging SystemLet’s say that you want to remember a list of Food stuff rich in Vitamin A: 

1.         Egg 2.         Milk3.         Green vegetables4.         Banana5.         Pumpkin6.         Sweet Potato7.         Carrot8.         Tomato9.         Papaya10.       Liver  

If you use the Creative sentence system (covered in Part I), you must find a long enough sentence to remember the above items. Further, if I were to ask you what the number 5 item is, you might have a problem giving an instance answer. 

This is where the Numerical Pegging system becomes useful. This system is quite simple to formulate. All you have to do is to replace the number with something, which looks like the number, sounds like the number or associated with the number. The reason why you have to do this is because; your right brain doesn’t understand the concept of numbers or letters.  So by replacing the numbers with something which looks likes, sounds like or associates with the number, you are allowing your right brain to recognize the number and help you remember the word. 

This system is very much like hanging your laundry out to dry.

 

Imagine that you’ve just done your laundry and are hanging them out to dry on the bamboo stick.  In order to ensure that the clothes do not fly away in the wind, you will put pegs on the cloth.  The purpose of the peg is to keep the clothes in place.  Likewise, the numerical pegging system works in a similar fashion. 

 

Just imagine that you have ten different pegs each with a number written on it and or a shape, which is associated with the number. And you are hanging the ten items given above.Let us now create the Numerical Peg to help us remember the words given above.1          -  SUN (sounds like one)2          -  SHOE (one-two buckle my shoes)3          -   TREE (sounds like three)4          -   DOOR (three-four shut the door)5          -   FINGER  (sounds like five)6          -   STICK (five-six pick up stick)7          -   HEAVEN ( sounds like)8          -   SPIDER (looks like eight and has got eight legs)9          -  FLAG POLE (a flag fluttering in the wind looks like a nine)10        -   HEN (as in: nine-ten a big fat hen) 

If you want to remember the items rich in vitamin A as shown earlier this is how you do it. You just have to imagine: 1 is a SUN and visualizes the sun is shaped like an EGG.  

Number 2 is SHOE and imagine that you poured some MILK into your shoe and drank it as you had no glass (I know it sounds disgusting, but you won’t forget what number 2 is now will you?)  

Number 3 is TREE and you look at the tree which was growing GREEN VEGETABLES. See yourself picking these vegetables from the tree. 

Number 4 is DOOR and you open the door and a great piece of BANANA fell on you.  

Number 5 is FINGER and imagine you digging your fingers into a huge PUMPKIN. 

Number 6 is STICK and you were using a stick to dig out the SWEET POTATO from the ground.  

Number 7 is HEAVEN and in heaven you saw a lot of CARROT. Make it big carrots so that you won’t forget it.  

Number 8 is SPIDER  and see a spider building a web inside a TOMATO.  

Number 9 is a FLAGPOLE and see a huge PAPAYAS on top of the flagpole.  

Number 10 is HEN and see the hen running away from a cleaver which sounds like a LIVER.

Now stop reading this article and see whether you can remember the 10 food items rich in vitamin A.

 

If you were able to do it, Congratulations! If you had difficulty recalling any particular item, this could be because your mental connection for that item was not strong enough to hold the information.  It’s like you pegged your clothes loosely and a strong wind blew it away.  What you need to do is make a stronger connection.

 

This technique is useful especially when you have to recall things at random.  All you’ve got to do is to link the word you want to remember to the number peg.  It is not necessary that you need to follow what I’ve given above.  You could use other words to represent the numbers as long as you are able to associate the word with the number.

 

In the office environment you will find this technique useful to remember information that you receive randomly and which you have to arrange in a structure manner.  The important thing is to ensure that your peg is powerful enough to allow you to make an effective mental link so that you could recall the information at ease.  Go ahead and try using this technique.  You might try with your shopping list, or your ‘To-Do’ list.  It is only when you make a concerted effort to unleash the true potential of your brain power that you can develop a razor sharp memory.

 

This part only covers the numerical pegs for the first 10 numbers.  If you want to remember beyond 10 items you need to add on new pegs.  However, finding words that can ideally replace the number might become more tedious as you go beyond 10.  This is when you need a variation of the numerical pegging system called the alphanumerical pegging system.  I will show you this in the next part of the Developing a Razor Sharp Memory.