2 Odd Things You Need To Know To Remember Anything

A magician’s guide to using your memory better.

Selda Seyfi

Dec 02, 2024

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Three weeks ago, Mr S. and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.

There’s nothing more exciting for me as a mum of two little ones, (who never gets to go out anymore), to have a date night.

As a lover of all things weird, strange, and unusual, I booked for us to watch a magic show.

I was mesmerized from the start.

Amongst the disappearing objects, mentalism, and sleight of hand, one ‘lesson’ I came home with was the art of remembering things.

I often hear people I work with complaining that their memory isn’t what it used to be.

As a language’s student, I used to be able to learn and remember up to 1000 new words every week. Now, I’ll be lucky if I can remember to get the laundry out of the washing machine on time.

Just like any other skill, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

The magician was incredible at remembering things.

It’s like he memorised entire texts of books, which enabled him to complete the tricks seamlessly, making us all think he was a Memory God.

What if I told you, you could also gain superhuman memory powers by using his technique?

What I’m about to show you, I’ve remembered from three weeks ago (with no help from my husband, and without any notes).

Pay attention, now… I might test you later.

The magician asked the audience for ten random words.

This is what they shouted out:

1. Mug

2. Umbrella

3. Banana

4. Glasses

5. Chair

6. Football

7. Remote Control

8. Toothbrush

9. Phone

10. Book

He said, the easiest way to remember each of these words, and in the correct order, is to connect them into a story.

Here’s the story:

I had a mug, with a fancy little umbrella in it. You know, the ones you get in cocktails.

The umbrella looked so good, I really wanted to lick it, and oddly, when I did - it tasted like banana.

Inside the banana, there were some glasses – I thought ‘that was strange.’

I put the glasses down on a chair next to me.

When I looked at the chair, I noticed it had footballs instead of legs.

Sure enough, the colour of the footballs could be controlled by a remote control.

On closer look, the remote was dirty, so I used a toothbrush to clean it.

But then my mum called me on it, and I realised the toothbrush was actually a phone.

A phone that I could read a book on.

How does this work and how can you use it to your benefit?

Before we talk about the how, let’s discuss the what.

What is it?

One of the key tools that the magician uses is the Storytelling method.

Whilst there is no ‘one inventor’ of this technique, it has evolved naturally from the deep human inclination to use stories to communicate, remember, and make sense of the world.

Before writing, humans relied on oral storytelling to pass down history, cultural norms, and survival knowledge.

Stories were memorable because they engaged emotions and imagination.

Religious texts and parables for instance, were passed down through stories to help convey moral lessons and complex theological ideas in an accessible way.

Another technique in the magicians’ toolbox was the method of loci.

Also known as the Memory Palace, this technique dates back to ancient Greece.

While Simonides (Phonetically: sih-MON-ih-deez) is credited with developing the method of loci, storytelling was an integral part of how arguments were communicated in his era.

According to legend, he discovered the method after a banquet hall collapse, where he could identify victims by remembering where they were sitting.

Ancient orators, like Cicero, also used this technique to memorize long speeches.

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it became a cornerstone for how people used to think, speak, and write.

Monks and scholars would often use it for memorizing religious texts, speeches, and classical works.

Visualization is key to how these concepts work

Both storytelling and the memory palace bring about strong visuals whilst activating our emotions.

Modern cognitive psychology confirms that storytelling narratives:

Activate multiple regions of the brain.
Leverage emotion and visualization for deeper encoding into memory.
Follow natural patterns of cause and effect, which are easier to recall.

The traditional way of using the memory palace, is to visualize a familiar place, like your home, and associate each room or area with the items you want to remember.

Then, you "walk through" this mental space, recalling each item as you go.

There are three key benefits to remembering in this way:

1. Better recall and retention

Creating a story engages multiple parts of the brain, including those responsible for emotions, visualization, and language. This multi-sensory involvement makes information more memorable.

By anchoring memories to specific locations in a familiar environment, you leverage spatial memory, which is naturally strong in humans. This makes it easier to retrieve complex or large amounts of information.

2. A simpler and more logical way of organizing information

Stories provide a natural sequence, with a beginning, middle, and end, which organizes information cohesively and makes it easier to follow.

Walking through the mental layout of your chosen memory palace provides a structured way to retrieve that information.

3. More Engaging Learning

Crafting vivid, imaginative stories transforms dry facts into engaging, meaningful content, which reduces boredom and improves focus.

By designing unique and exaggerated visualizations for each location in your memory palace, you make the process fun and encourage creativity, which only enhances our ability to remember.

To create your own memory palace:

1. Choose a location you know well.

2. Visualize it clearly in your mind.

3. Place the items or concepts you want to remember in specific spots - The more vivid and unusual the imagery, the better it sticks.

4. Practice walking through the location in your mind, actively calling out what you can see.

To sum up

We all suffer, time to time, with forgetfulness.

But this doesn’t mean that we have a ‘bad memory.’

It just means that we haven’t practiced using our memory enough, and/or we haven’t developed any systems to help us remember things easily.

Now, with these two simple tools – storytelling and the memory palace, we can all be the magician in our own lives.

To close off, open your mental notepad, and remember what were the ten items in the story above?

Let me know how you found this in the comments, and whether you can see a use for it in your own life.