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Remembering a list

A list is the easiest place to feel the technique working. Two methods: a story that chains each item to the next, and a set of pegs that lets you jump straight to item seven. Try the first one now, it takes two minutes.

The story method

Chain each item to the next with one ridiculous, moving image. Each image only has to do one job: bring back the next item. Here's a shopping list:

milk · batteries · bread · stamps · bananas · toothpaste

  1. A carton of milk is being charged with jump leads clamped to two giant batteries. It shudders and sparks.
  2. The batteries burst open, and instead of acid, warm bread dough oozes out and keeps rising.
  3. The bread is covered in postage stamps, licked and stuck on one by one by a very tired postman.
  4. Each stamp peels itself off and flies away, flapping, and lands on a bunch of bananas, which scream.
  5. The bananas squeeze themselves like tubes, and toothpaste squirts out of their tops.

Close your eyes and run the story once. Then look away and write the list down. Most people get all six, in order, first time. Now try it backwards; the chain works both ways.

What made it work is exactly what makes a Spanish word stick: each pair interacts (the batteries don't sit beside the bread, they leak it), everything moves, and nothing is sensible.

The weak spot is the chain itself: lose one link and everything after it is gone. For a list you'll need to enter in the middle, use pegs.

The peg system

Learn ten "pegs" once, and you can hang any list on them. The easiest set rhymes with the numbers:

12345678910
bunshoetreedoorhivesticksheavengatewinehen

Then attach each item to its peg with an interacting image. The same list:

  1. Bun: a burger bun soaked through with milk, dripping all over your hands.
  2. Shoe: your shoe is full of batteries, and every step gives you a shock.
  3. Tree: a tree growing loaves of bread, which drop on people's heads.
  4. Door: a front door made entirely of stamps, flapping in the wind.
  5. Hive: bees flying in and out of a hive made of bananas.
  6. Sticks: someone brushing their teeth with a bundle of sticks, toothpaste everywhere.

Now "what was fourth?" has a direct answer: four is door, the door is stamps. No need to run the chain from the top.

Which one, when

  • Story: a list you'll only use once, in order, today. Fast to build, and gone by next week, which is fine.
  • Pegs: a list you need by position, or out of order. The pegs themselves last for life; the images on them fade and get replaced.
  • Anything longer than about ten items, or anything you need to keep: the memory palace.