Improve your memory by learning from ‘public memory’
I recently attended a Memory Dynamics workshop that taught me skills to improve memory. From a person’s name and specialty to the content you share with the media about a client, memory plays an important role in how others in your field view you and how the public is primed to your clients’ brand.
What were you doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001? Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded?
It’s no secret the public tends to remember the negative events. But do you remember when Luke and Laura finally got married? (Or if you’re my age, when William and Kate got married?) For some reason, these memories are fuzzier than the negative ones. Why is that?
That’s because for a person to commit something to their memory and be able to recall it with ease later, it must include four elements: Destination, Image, Storage and Kinesthesia (D.I.S.K.)
Destination: Look at a physical place. It could be a podium, a bar stool, a door. Whatever it is, imagine the physical location.
Image: Imagine a ridiculous scenario that would not happen in real life. The more mundane the image, the more likely you are to forget.
Storage: Storing information in your brain takes hard action. Say what you need to remember out loud.
Kinesthesia: Muscle memory works through your imagination. Imagine you are lifting a heavy box. Notice your legs feeling that movement?
Public memory favors negative events because it has more elements of D.I.S.K. than positive events.
So how can we apply D.I.S.K. to improve our memory and remember anything from a name to a positive event?
Well normally, we remember by association:
You meet Crystal at a networking event and learn she’s a technology reporter. You want to remember her name and what she does, but you have met 50 other reporters that night and can’t remember faces when looking at business cards. When you meet her, she’s wearing a sparkly necklace so you think it will be easy to remember her name. Crystal with the crystal necklace! Until the second time you meet her. She’s not wearing jewelry and you forgot her name and what she covers.
But the problem with using association is that we often forget the association in the first place. So let’s try to remember Crystal using D.I.S.K.
You meet Crystal, a technology reporter at the bar (destination) of a networking event. You ask about the stories she enjoys covering while repeating her name aloud (storage). You imagine yourself picking up a bottle of wine and pouring it (kinesthesia) on her cell phone and ruining it (image).
Absurd! You would never do this in real life, which makes it more memorable in your brain. Using D.I.S.K. is a unique way to commit anything to your memory with the ability to recall it with ease (and maybe a laugh, too!).
