Never forget your PIN number again!

We ALL encounter numbers in many areas of our lives, from the dreaded PIN to your National Insurance number, passport number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers and phone numbers.

Any long number is tricky for the brain to remember, and this has spawned a vast array of quick- click technological solutions. Your mobile phone stores all the numbers you need. Your computer can store your credit card number. You may have a PayPal account that links to your bank, so you can pay online in a single click.

It’s all very convenient, but it means we don’t even need to remember our own phone number any more.

Technology might be making our lives easier, but it is definitely making our brains lazier. You know for sure that if you go everywhere by car and never take any exercise, your body will get fat and slow. The brain is no different. Your numerical skills are like a muscle that needs to be exercised.

Making an effort to memorise important numbers is not only handy — and sometimes impressive — it’s also grist to the mill of honing your mental skills and warding off the sluggish brain patterns of older age.

The key is to make a series of associations for numbers, so that you can create a strong image when you come to link them together.

Try the number rhyme system shown here: Zero — hero One — bun (or sun) Two — shoe Three — tree Four — door Five — hive Six — sticks Seven — heaven Eight — gate Nine — wine (or vine)

Alternatively, you might prefer to use the number shape system, which makes an association based on a number’s shape: Zero — football One — candle Two — swan Three — a heart on its side (or an open pair of handcuffs) Four — sailing boat Five — hook Six — snake Seven — axe Eight — snowman (alternatively an hourglass) Nine — tennis racket

Rhymes and shapes such as these are great for remembering three, four or five- digit codes. Once you have created a series of associations for digits zero to nine, you can use the visual link system I explained in yesterday’s paper ( when teaching tricks to remember names) and you’ll never forget a short number again.

For instance, if your Lloyds Bank PIN is 9386, you could imagine a black horse ( the Lloyds logo) that has been drinking wine ( nine). Intoxicated, it bumps into a tree (three). The tree falls, smashing a gate (eight) into sticks (six).

Alternatively, if your hotel room number is 704, you could imagine the room adorned with pearly gates like the entrance to heaven (seven). Instead of Saint Peter, Superman (hero, zero) is standing outside and opens the door (four) for you.

Slightly longer numbers seem to work best with the number shape system. If the code to your office is 29180, you could imagine a swan (two) blocking the door to your office. It picks up a tennis racket (nine) in its beak and threatens you with it. You light a candle (one) to try to ward it off. It works, but the flame from the candle starts to melt a snowman (eight) that has a football (zero) for a head.

You can also use this method to remember important dates.

The Battle of Bosworth was in 1485, so to remember the date, you could imagine Shake- speare’s depiction of Richard III as a hunchbacked villain. As he lies dying on Bosworth Field, he is clutching a candle (one) to illuminate a model sailing boat (four). The boat is captained by a snowman (eight) with a hook (five) for a hand.

Try to come up with some imaginative scenes to remember the following: Sainsbury’s credit card PIN: 9032 Briefcase combination: 128-540 International dialling code for Fiji: +679 Year of the Battle of Trafalgar: 1805 HOW TO REMEMBER ANYTHING

Use acronyms

ThIS is where you take the initial letters of a phrase to make up a new word. Classic examples are BBC ( British Broadcasting Corporation), Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Scuba ( self- contained underwater breathing apparatus).

You may have seen texted conversations peppered with acronyms, as commonly used phrases such as ‘oh my God’ and ‘ laugh out loud’ get shortened to ‘omg’ and ‘lol’.

Acronyms help concepts stick in our memories because they shorten a complex list into a simple word.

So if you have a list to remember, try to arrange the items into an order that will spell out a silly-sounding word.

Use acrostics

TAke the first letter, syllable or word of each line of something you want to remember and create a poem or message — that’s an acrostic.

So, anyone who has learned to read music will know: ‘ every good boy deserves food’, which helps you remember the order of the notes on the stave.

Similarly, the message: ‘ My very easy method just speeds up naming planets’ conveniently corresponds to the first letter of the (then nine) planets listed in order: Mercury, Venus, earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

One of the benefits of this technique is that it is relatively straightforward to create a meaningful sentence, so it can be an easier method to use.

The disadvantage of both acronyms and acrostics is that you don’t get a clear indication of what each letter corresponds to. So if the same letter occurs more than once, you can’t be sure what it relates to.

For instance, the acrostic commonly used to recall the system of colour-coded stripes used in electronics to indicate degrees of resistance kicks off with two Bs, which can easily be confused: Bye Bye Rosie Off You Go (to) Birmingham Via Great Western. It stands for: Black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, grey, white.

But you could quite easily confuse brown with black or even blue, as they all begin with a B, or green with grey because they both begin with a G.

Use rhymes

DO YOU find it easy to remember song lyrics or your favourite poems?

The tune, rhythm, rhyme and intonation give your brain extra associations to help you memorise the words. That’s why we can all remember: Thirty days hath September, April, June and November, All the rest have 31, Except February alone, Which has but 28 days clear, And 29 in each leap year.

You’ll also much more easily remember the letters of the alphabet if you can sing them in order.

You can make up songs, verses or poems as a fun way to memorise complex information — I once taught the main points of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to the tune of A Policeman’s Lot Is Not A happy One from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance.