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We’ve all had a difficult time remembering what we want to buy at the store or what bills we have to pay this week, and the majority of people who had to do a great deal of studying in their youth also know that there are tons of little memorizing techniques that you can use to help you remember the things you need to recall. Most of us, however, do not understand why memorizing techniques work.


How the Brain Works

Think of the brain as a vast closet full of drawers. Each drawer has the tools that allow your body to function on a daily basis and is vital to living a normal life. Some drawers are responsible for your unconscious tasks, such as blinking and breathing, while other drawers are responsible for your willful tasks, like walking or jumping. Then there are the storage drawers. These are huge drawers that are absolutely empty and are waiting to be filled.

There are two types of storage drawers: short term and long term. The short term storage drawers are extremely shallow and don’t have room for very much in them. That’s where things that you only need to remember for a few minutes go. For instance, have you ever driven down the road and not been able to remember the road you traveled on five minutes before? That is a direct result of your short term memory. It remembers things for only as long as you need to remember them. If you remembered everything, your short term drawer would overfill and wouldn’t be able to close.

Then there’s the long term memory drawer. This is a vast and empty drawer that is waiting for the memories that you want to hold on to for longer than just a few minutes. This is the drawer that your childhood memories go into and the information that you need to pass a test goes into.

Getting it From Short to Long

The reason that memorizing techniques work is that they act like a maid service, transferring the thing you need to remember from the short term drawer to the long term drawer. If you leave the memory you’re trying to remember in the short term drawer, it will most certainly be gone within a short time. By switching it over to the long term drawer, you will be able to recall the information whenever you have need of it, making it easier to pass tests and remember the list of errands that you need to run for the rest of the day.

There are a variety of different types of memorizing techniques available to try. The trick is in finding one that works well for you. Don’t hesitate to try a bunch of different techniques, as everyone learns and remembers in a different fashion. Eventually you’ll find the perfect memorizing technique, or maid service, if you will, that will allow you to transfer that short term memory to your long term drawer.

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