How to Develop a Perfect Memory (7 page)

The stages themselves are carefully chosen; it is important to use open

spaces and outside features such as bridges, roads, and rivers, from where you can see plenty of days ahead. I have also ensured that the distance between each stage remains constant. This makes it easier to spot congestion.

It's up to you how often you choose to review your diary. I look at mine once a day, first thing each morning. I stand at the relevant stage and survey what lies ahead. As the days pass, I move further along the journey.

Occasionally, I return to my folly for an overview and glance at the whole month. I also keep an eye on Wonersh. The second journey (February) will naturally begin to fill up as the first month comes to an end. I try to add images the moment I fix another appointment. You can't blame your mental diary if you've forgotten to 'write' an appointment down.

Between them, the two journeys cover the whole year, taking alternate

months. As February passes, and I make my way towards Wonersh, the journey to Bramley will start to fill up, this time with March's events. I am using the video again, erasing the old images as I record new ones. As March passes, the journey to Wonersh will fill up with April's appointments. And so on.

If you are extremely busy and need to confirm dates three months ahead,

simply use a third route and rotate between the three of them.

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN JOURNEY

My two journeys bring back happy childhood memories of charging around the Surrey countryside, exploring deserted pill boxes, climbing trees, catching fish.

If you are going to use a mental diary regularly, it is essential that the journey itself is a pleasant experience. There is little to be gained by throwing yourself into a deep depression every morning.

Remember, too, that your journey must be completely deserted as you map

it out in your head; this will ensure that the images stand out clearly when you come to populate the stages. And try to reinforce certain key stages throughout the month, like the 5th, or 11th or 26th; this will help you to find dates more quickly. (Once again, my 11th stage involves stairs.) The next time someone asks if you are free on a certain day, you will be able to tell them in an instant, instead of fumbling around and muttering, 'I'll have to check my diary.'

EXAMPLES

Here is how I would remember some of the appointments from my imaginary

January:

5 January: Golf lesson

The location is the 5th Stage, which is a fence. The key image is of my tutor chipping golf balls. He is knocking them over the fence.

7 January: Steve and Caroline's wedding

The location is the driveway to a splendid manor house built by Sir Edward Lutyens (7th stage). The key image is of Steve and Caroline. They are making their way down the drive in a wedding carriage, dressed in brilliant white.

Confetti is flying everywhere.

9 January: Board Meeting, Head Office

The location is a wooden stile (9th stage). The key image is of my boss. He is trying in vain to conduct a board meeting, and he looks a little silly sitting on the stile.

15 January: Giving a dinner party

The location is the river bank (15th stage). The key image is of my guests sitting around a table. They are on the river bank, waiting impatiently for someone to catch a fish so they can get on with their dinner.

28 January: Insure car

The location is the hotel (28th stage). The key image is of my car, badly crum-pled at the front. It has been towed to the hotel car park. This depressing image would shock me into re-insuring it.

HOW TO REMEMBER THE TIME OF AN APPOINTMENT

The whole purpose of the mental diary is to improve your awareness of future engagements and plans. There is nothing to stop you from using it in conjunction with a written diary. The sight of a doctor standing by a well, for example, need only be a reminder of the day. You can always then check the time of your appointment in a diary.

Having said that, the mental diary is well equipped to record the time of an appointment. Using the twenty-four-hour clock, you can translate times into people and incorporate them in your image.

If, for example, my board meeting on 9 January was at 1600 hrs, I would

imagine Arthur Scargill interrupting the meeting by delivering a sack of coal (16 = AS = Arthur Scargill).

It helps to reinforce the time image if you include the person's action, but it is not always necessary. Here are two more examples:

16 January: Collect Toby from Heathrow at 0900 hrs

The location is the bridge (16th stage). The key image is of Toby. An aero-plane has landed on the bridge and he is disembarking, accompanied by Oliver North (09 = ON = Oliver North).

19 January: Dentist's appointment at 1100 hrs. Golf Lesson at 1700 hrs.

The location is the willow tree (19th Stage) In this particular example, I have two appointments on the same day, so I imagine two separate key images, one on either side of the willow tree. The first key image is of my dentist. He is drilling a hole in one of Arthur Askey's teeth (11 = AA = Arthur Askey). The second key image is of my golf tutor. He is teaching Alec Guinness how to stop hooking the ball (17
=
AG = Alec Guinness).

WHO NEEDS A FILOFAX ANYWAY?

The mental diary has a virtually limitless capacity to store information. All you have to do is translate the data into images and incorporate them in your scene.

Let's suppose that I had to collect Toby from Heathrow Terminal 3 on 16th January. I imagine Oliver North wearing handcuffs (number shape for 3) and being escorted by Toby down the steps of the aircraft.

PLANNING THE WHOLE YEAR

I said earlier that if you wanted to plan for more than two months ahead, you should rotate among three separate journeys. However, if you have only the odd event to remember throughout the rest of the year, stick with your two main journeys and use a third, short one, consisting of ten stages.

I have just such a route, heading out north from my tower. If I need to

remember an art exhibition on 27 August, for example, I would create an

image at the first stage: Bob Geldof swinging a plank of wood around while admiring a painting.

I arrive at this image as follows: the key image is the painting, reminding me that it is an art exhibition. The date is the 27th; 27
=
BG = Bob Geldof; August is the 8th month. 08
=
OH
=
Oliver Hardy, whose action is swinging a plank.

The chronological order does not need to be preserved along this shorter journey; the. dates are contained within each image. If I am subsequently invited to a farewell barbecue with some friends on 22 June, I move to the second stage and imagine my friends watching Betty Boothroyd playing backgammon on the barbecue. (They could have been playing tennis.)

You should know by now how I arrived at this particular scene. The key

image is the barbecue. The date is the 22nd: 22 = BB = Betty Boothroyd. June is the 6th month: 06 = OS = Omar Sharif, whose action is playing

backgammon.

6

THE MENTAL

IN-TRAY

THE LIST DISEASE

In the last chapter, I showed you how to remember appointments, but what about everyday chores and tasks that we never get around to doing? I must cut the grass, you tell yourself; I must do something about the woodworm in the kitchen table, I must drop in on the old lady at the end of the road; I must join the health club. The tasks seem to add up, and you never get around to doing any of them.

It can all become quite stressful. You start to exaggerate the problem — 'I have got so many things I should be doing' - even though you could probably count them on one hand. The answer, of course, is to order your chores by writing them down, which is why we have become a nation of list-writers. But even this practice is not without its stresses. Bits of paper can get lost. Worse still, you can become an obsessive list-maker, buying in truck loads of 'Post-its'

and plastering your walls with memoranda. In extreme cases, you draw up the mother of all lists once a morning, detailing the lists that you must write during the day.

THE CURE

Let me suggest a calm and effective alternative: the mental in-tray. Choose a simple journey with ten stages. It is important that the place holds happy memories for you. I use a hotel I stayed at on a wonderful holiday. Why not use somewhere from your honeymoon (providing it wasn't a disaster)? Or a scene from your childhood?

Once you have established and memorized the ten stages, run through all

the chores, tasks, or general worries that are currently troubling you. Then create a key image for each one and place them at separate stages. Here is a typical in-tray:

THE MENTAL IN-TRAY

CHORE

KEY IMAGE

ROUTE

Sunny beach

Bar

Restaurant

Hotel drive

Reception

Lounge

Pool

Bedroom

Jacuzzi

1 Hoover house

Vacuum cleaner

Balcony

The bizarre image of a supermarket trolley tucked up in bed can mean only one thing: my turn to do the shopping. And the sight of my aunt in tears, pouring her heart out to the somewhat bemused hotel receptionist, is a sharp reminder that a letter is well overdue.

Priority is not important. Once all your worries are out in the open and pleasant surroundings of your journey, you will have an equal awareness of each of them, allowing you to get them into some sort of perspective.

OTHER USES

A mental in-tray has many other uses. I find it invaluable when I am attending a meeting, or conducting an important phone conversation. If there are certain key points which I want to convey, I translate them into images and put them along my in-tray journey. Nothing is more frustrating than the sudden realiza-tion, usually on the bus home, that you have forgotten to say your most

important point at a crucial meeting.

I also use it last thing at night. If I must leave a note for the milkman, I imagine a bottle of milk at stage 1. Similarly, if I ever have to go on a course of pills, taking three a day, for example, I move an image of a bottle to the next stage every time I take a dose. Perhaps its most useful application, though, is in a job interview.

7

MEMORY AND

JOB INTERVIEWS

Before I became a full-time Memory Man, I once applied for a job at an

airport. Sensing that I had to pull something special out of the hat if I was to get it, I decided to swot up on some background information. I memorized every piece of data I could find about the company, and I also learnt all I could about each airline that operated out of the airport.

The interview went well. I tried to give the impression that I was genuinely interested in the overall environment. It must have paid off because I landed the job. Thanks to a trained memory, I was referring to a mental in-tray throughout the interview, reminding myself of salient points which I thought should be raised. I had also used an extended journey to file away the information about the company and airlines.

In today's difficult employment market, interviews are more important than ever; a trained memory can help you to make the most of them. Think how

refreshing it is for an interviewer to be sitting opposite an applicant who has bothered to find out about the firm beforehand. Not only that, but the applicant comes across as intelligent, recalling detailed and relevant information seemingly at will. When asked about his or her CV, the reply is clear and con-cise, with no 'umming' and 'erring' or 'I can't remember what I was doing then.'

And finally, when the interviewer asks if there are any questions, the applicant raises considered, well thought out queries.

THE IN-TRAY

The chief purpose of using a mental in-tray for a job interview is to order your thoughts, allowing you to ask all the questions you wanted to before walking in through the door. There's nothing worse than planning what you are going to say, perhaps even scribbling something down on a scrap of paper in the waiting room, and then cursing yourself afterwards, 'I wish I'd asked this; I completely forgot about that.' The tense atmosphere of an interview can ruin your

composure and clarity of thought unless you have a strong mental structure to hold everything together.

In-trays for interviews are created in exactly the same way as I described in the previous chapter: keep the journey short and simple (no more than ten stages), and use instant association to create your key images. The only difference is that you might want to place your questions in order of priority. As the conversation progresses, walk along your short journey letting the key images trigger off the questions.

I find that an in-tray and a longer journey work very well in tandem. A

question about a certain aspect of the company's operations, for example, might be the cue for calling up a separate journey containing all the relevant data on that subject.

JOURNEYS

There is no limit to the information that can be stored using journeys: facts and figures about the company, including balance sheets and its history; information relating to customers, branches, key employees; data about the general sector or industry; related share prices.

But be careful! Don't show off too much; you may unnerve your interviewer if you suddenly reel off the company's entire annual accounts. The odd subtle throwaway line at the right moment is far more likely to leave the right lasting impression.