Writing a diary has been a
usual way to remember events of one’s daily routine for a long time. However,
you do not carry it (diary) with you all the time and certain things can be
forgotten if you don’t have your it around. Now we have modern technology at
our disposal to help us with that and we can program event reminders on our
pc’s, telephones and other electronic gadgets. And yet, these can fail us too
as all equipment is not perfect. But it is not the main problem! As we are lazy
to train our bodies, so we are lazy to train our brains. That is the main
reason why our memories start failing us with age. We get lazier and lazier. We
have to find out ways to change this tendency. One way to keep our minds busy
is by writing a mental diary. The process will definitely help to improve your
memory.
Mental diary will work on
the same principle as a physical one does. You will have certain dates marked
on your mental calendar in the same way as you do it in your real diary. The
best way to do it is to use ‘the journey method’ or ‘the method of loci’ to
help you create this diary.
Route with 31 stages – month
with 31 days
You will have to choose a
route (physical) that is familiar to you and have 31 stages representing one
day in a month. By route I mean, let’s say a familiar way from your home to the
store or something similar. You need some specific place or object on that way
for you to mark it as a separate stage (day).
Let me show you what I mean.
Stage no1 – exit from your
house, stage no 2 – the gate of your house, stage no 3 – a tree near your neighbor’s
house, stage no 4 – large stone near the road, stage no 5 – bus stop, stage no
6 – hotel and etc. You will need to select 31 these special objects that would symbolize a day. Each object – one day.
So, stage no 1 (exit from your house) is the first day of the month. Stage no 2
(the gate of the house) is the second day of the month and so on and so forth.
How does writing your mental
diary work?
If you know all the details
about your next month agenda in advance you can start writing your mental diary
now. Let us say you have a meeting at your work on the first day of the month.
So, you imagine your boss
and the employees standing near the exit of your door and (let us say) singing (about
a meeting) or doing something else funny. Remember the more optimistic and
positive the images are: the better it will be for you to remember those. If
you have an appointment with your dentist on the fifth day of the month you
imagine your dentist standing at a bus stop (fifth stage) with all of his
equipment right beside him.
I hope you understand what I
mean. This is how you go through all of the events of the month in your mind
and make an unforgettable monthly diary. Just make an association of an event
(which you have on that day) with something funny and place at the stage of the
route that represents that specific day. You will be surprised how easy
remembering your monthly events becomes.
If you have to remember a
few months in advance you can choose a few routes with 31 days going through
the same process with the second route too.
Ok, enough about mental
diary for today. Hope to come back to the topic some day and speak more on the
theme of ‘the journey method’ more.
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