Never forget a name ( or your keys, PIN code or birthdays) ever again
by the world’s leading brain trainer
WHEN i meet tony Buzan for my memory tutorial, the first thing he says is: ‘tell me about the planets.’ We are sitting in his beautiful garden in Cookham, Berkshire. the sun is shining. Birds are singing. the leaves on the willow tree are fluttering in the breeze.
But in an instant i’m wrenched from pastoral idyll to sweaty shame at the back of a classroom as the world’s leading memory guru asks me to name the planets in order of distance from the sun.
Over the next few painful minutes, i muster Mars, saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. tony, despite being 75, is cool and elegant in his linen suit. He is also razor sharp: ‘How many planets are there?’ i’m beginning to sweat in my polyester dress. ‘ten?’ i say. ‘12?’
tony looks disappointed. ‘ there are nine.’ He looks at my list. My score, he tells me sadly, is zero.
My memory used to be quite good, but when i hit 50 half my brain cells seemed to fly off to a warmer place. i used to remember chapter and verse what people told me at parties, and be able to quote chunks of it back. those days feel like another era.
i can introduce myself to someone who will look shocked and tell me we’ve had dinner together. i’ll tell somebody i haven’t read a book and then find out i reviewed it for a national newspaper. i’ll smile cheerfully at a guy on the station platform before i remember we’ve been on several excruciating dates.
Almost every day i rifle in my handbag and panic that i’ve lost my purse. i have roamed my flat in search of my phone only to realise i’m chatting on it. My glasses have legs and spend the whole day scuttling away.
the evidence about ageing and memory is mixed, but some things are clear. Our brains are biggest in our early 20s and then start to decline. Most of our memories come from the age of 15 to 25. in our 40s, the cortex starts to shrink. Neurons can atrophy. it’s enough to make you want a very big drink — only alcohol makes it worse.
But tony does not subscribe to this view. He has written more than 140 books and presented a BBC tV series about memory. He believes that it all comes down to how you use your brain and that, with a few simple exercises, most of us are capable of supercharging our brains and making our memories extraordinary.
tony has been hailed for doing for the brain what stephen Hawking did for the mysteries of the universe. He has worked with some of the world’s top athletes, companies and banks. And he firmly believes that a better memory improves our lives and relationships. think how pleased people are when we remember their birthdays, children’s names, achievements and more.
the key is to understand how memory works. ‘this,’ he says, picking up my black biro, ‘is one colour.’ One colour is boring. Pages of written notes are boring. the great geniuses, he explains, such as Charles Darwin and leonardo da Vinci, did multi-coloured notes like doodles. in fact, they were a bit like the mind maps that tony invented, which are now used throughout the world.
these geniuses, he says, also played ‘imagination games’. Memory is all about ‘the conjunction between the imagination and association, with location’. And now, he says, he will show me how this works.
First, we tackle the planets. i listen as tony tells me a ‘fairy tale’ — about a thermometer that explodes and a gorgeous goddess and 300ft giant — that cleverly includes all the planets in order. After he has told me his story he tests me again. ‘ you went from miserable zero to full marks.’ in five minutes i’ve become an expert.
Next, he twice reads out a list of 20 words. then i have to write them down in order. After two minutes, i’ve got three words right. i’ve also got three words that weren’t on the list. tony writes down my score. i feel my planetary bubble burst.
‘We are going to create your memory palace,’ says tony. i try to look enthusiastic as he explains that it’s a technique used by the Ancient Greeks and romans. you visualise places and objects in your home that you can connect things with, or place things in them. ‘ you’re standing in front of your house,’ he says. ‘take it from there.’
i think of the front door to my block of flats. it won’t, i think, take me a moment to skip round. i describe the table in the hallway, the sofa in the sitting room, the work surface in the kitchen, and the lovely new patio doors. i write down 20 places. ‘right,’ he says, ‘i’m going to read a list of 20 words and i want you to place them in your memory palace.’
Five minutes later, i have a liver slithering around in the bowl on my hall table. i have a boat on my sofa. i have a foot on my Nespresso machine, an ostrich on my chaise longue and a monster on my bed. As instructed, i write them all down. Miraculously, this time, i forget only three.
tony waves a news report about memory. ‘these people,’ he says, ‘spent 40 days studying three hours a day and in that time they increased their performance in memory tests by two and a half times. And you just did what?’
i’m back in that primary school class, but this time i’m waving a gold star from teacher. ‘i went,’ i tell him, ‘from three out of 20 to 17 out of 20 in two hours.’ He opens a bottle of champagne and we clink glasses. ‘right,’ i tell him, ‘these are the things i need help with.’ And we work our way through my ‘ boring, monochromatic’ list of things . . .
HOW TO REMEMBER . . . Names
HOW on earth are you meant to remember the name of someone you’ve just met when you can’t even remember your friends’ names?
the answer, says tony, is to take your time. think of the Queen. she’s slow. she looks people in the eye. she repeats their name. Five repetitions is enough to lodge something in your brain. Make a visual association. if you meet a new Charlie, form an image to connect him with a Charlie you know. And Bob, or Charlie, is your uncle.
Numbers
iF i lOst my phone or my computer, i would pretty much lose my life. But it would be nice if i could at least remember my PiN, or the code to the car park gate.
the trick, says tony, is to form images for numbers (see the box to the right for a key). Once you’ve got pictures in your head, you can make up stories that connect them.
My PiN now involves a snake, an
elephant and a yacht, which should be a damn sight easier to remember next time I’m panicking at the checkout.
Birthdays
I’VE lately forgotten a dear friend’s birthday for the third year running. I used to have all my friends’ birthdays in my head, but they have nearly all floated off to the land of lost socks.
the answer, apparently, is a mind map. Draw a circle for the month or year and have rays going out to linked objects. If, for example, you have a friend who’s a writer, whose birthday is on the tenth of the month, you might think of painting a ball that’s sitting on a book. Sorry, Patsy. But just you watch me next year.
Film or book plot
tHE title rings a bell, but beyond that, you have no idea. (Last year I sat down to watch the coming-of-age film Boyhood and only realised half-way through that I’d seen it before.)
We’re back to mind maps. Link one event or person with another. add as much detail as you can to bring it alive.
I remembered the planets because of the goddess and the 300ft giant. tony brought in as many senses as he could to lodge the details in my brain.
Where your car is
‘HOW,’ asks tony, ‘can anybody lose or forget the car they drove and parked that weighs three tons?’ Incredibly easily, I say, I do it all the time. the reason we forget is that when we get out of the car we’re thinking about what we’re going to do next.
the answer is to use imagination and association. take half a second to connect it with the environment. What floor are we on? Is it near the cinema? You are, tony says, GPS-ing your imagination. It will save you time, trouble and perhaps, after a night out, your marriage.
Keys
YOU must have had your keys when you came in, but a poltergeist has clearly broken in and spirited them away since then.
and now you’re going to be late because you can’t leave the house without them.
the answer, says tony, is to calm down and make a habit of keeping them in the same place. Mine are now in a bowl on a table in the hall. next to the liver.
Why you went upstairs
It HaPPEnS almost every time. You go upstairs to get something and your mind goes blank.
It is, tony explains, because the thing you wanted was connected with a thought you had in a different environment. If you go back to where you were the thought should come back.
‘Image, association and location,’ he intones. now I’m wandering around intoning it, too.
Your shopping list
It’S easy! I have liver, a boat, a crayon, a museum, a monster and a church at strategic points around my flat, but I could swap them for toothpaste, cheese, coffee and shampoo.
Just take a few minutes to build your memory palace and you’ll be able to race round tesco without even glancing at a list.