I’m happy to report that I’m doing well in my progress through the memory exercises from the Memory Master web site. That’s good, since I need to get to the section on remembering names and faces before classes begin! (I discussed my reasons for developing these skills of memory in this post.)
It’s thoroughly fascinating to experience the development and working of these techniques. They’re not hard at all, although they do require generally untapped skills of transformation, imagination, and association. Once I cultivate those skills, the process of memorization will be downright easy.
To practice the “Substitute Words and Phrases” section, I decided to memorize the order in which the states joined the union. So far, I’ve pretty solidly memorized the first sixteen, i.e. those that joined before 1800. From memory, they are:
- Delaware
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey
- Georgia
- Connecticut
- Massachussets
- Maryland
- South Carolina
- New Hampshire
- Virginia
- New York
- North Carolina
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
Since I can spit those out pretty quickly now, I’ll learn the next fifteen (i.e. those that joined between 1800 and 1850) over the next day or so. I’ll also probably add the dates later, once I learn the technique for remembering numbers.
It’s fun and useful and easy! So if you wish to improve your skills of memorization, I’d highly recommend using these techniques. (As the introduction says, you need to do the lessons in order, as they build upon each other.)
