1) As I’m locking it, I’d think of something esoteric. A celebrity from my childhood; a cake I’d quite like to eat; a historical event. Then when I experience doubt about having locked the door, the memory of locking it will be attached to something. “Oh, yeah, I definitely locked the door, because I was thinking of the Battle of Stalingrad”. I tend to be thinking about esoteric things most of the time, so this happens naturally for me.
2) In this circumstance, I’d recall a short-lived advertisement for Danish Bacon from many years ago, which had the jingle “Daaaanish Bacon, Daaaanish Bacon, Yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yum” (I have totally failed to find this advert on YouTube, but trust me when I say the jingle is memorable, and was sung in playgrounds up and down the UK in the early 1990s). I’d then sing this song to myself, replacing the words “Danish Bacon” with “Antifragile”. I will probably find myself earwormed with the new Antifragile song long enough to get online and find it.
3) I’d form a fridge-shutting ritual, perhaps where I tap or drum on the internal fixtures of the fridge, and end with a vocal refrain reminding me to shut the door.
4) I would ask for the identity of a long-standing establishment near to the new business location, and search for that. More credibly, I’d probably wind up driving around aimlessly and getting hopelessly lost.
5) I’d go for a long (several mile) walk and talk to myself for a few hours about each part of the topic, imagining I’m explaining it to a second person. I’d then maintain a bullet-pointed running order on a sheet of paper while delivering the talk, and conversationally deliver each chunk. (Disclosure: I am quite terrible at presenting things in this fashion. No-one should take my advice on it, but I would suggest that memory is a relatively small part of the problem.)
6) I’d break it into three chunks of four numbers. 0004 5878 9625. Each of these chunks has its own rhythm that forms a kind of check-value for making sure I get it right. I’d say it to myself several times. I’d maybe type it out on a keypad a couple of dozen times if I really wanted to cement it. This method may be idiosyncratic to me and people like me, though. I tend to remember numbers pretty easily.
7) I don’t think there’s an easy solution to this, though I’d love to hear one. Prior to sleep is a really vulnerable time for memory formation.
8) This seems like asking “how can I remember something I haven’t remembered?” If you don’t remember something, you don’t remember it.
EDIT: Looking over other people’s answers it seems quite likely I’ve misinterpreted the above question, but I’m still not entirely sure what it’s asking.
9) Personally, 700 pages doesn’t seem that daunting. I’d probably break it down section by section and write out rough topic maps, so I know where in the overall space of the subject any given fact belongs. I’d also probably use Anki or something similar to reinforce specific facts and details. I find if you read stuff, write stuff and talk about stuff, that stuff tends to stick around in your head.
I notice that a lot of my answers are musical, rhythmical or aural in nature. On a related note, a category of memory-feat I’ve been engaged in a lot over the past year is remembering dance routines. The various processes for remembering them are unbelievably messy amalgams of what your body feels like, what the music is doing and what the names of the steps are. It’s like no other memory feat I’ve ever had to carry out.
Same here, I’d take that more as a challenge to my Anki (and general learning) skills. Knowing 700 pages of modern medicine? That’d be awesome! Sure sounds more interesting than 700 pages of accounting law.
The statistics textbook I carry around to read during my downtime, and some bits of which I’m ankifying, is around 500 pages long.
1) As I’m locking it, I’d think of something esoteric. A celebrity from my childhood; a cake I’d quite like to eat; a historical event. Then when I experience doubt about having locked the door, the memory of locking it will be attached to something. “Oh, yeah, I definitely locked the door, because I was thinking of the Battle of Stalingrad”. I tend to be thinking about esoteric things most of the time, so this happens naturally for me.
2) In this circumstance, I’d recall a short-lived advertisement for Danish Bacon from many years ago, which had the jingle “Daaaanish Bacon, Daaaanish Bacon, Yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yum” (I have totally failed to find this advert on YouTube, but trust me when I say the jingle is memorable, and was sung in playgrounds up and down the UK in the early 1990s). I’d then sing this song to myself, replacing the words “Danish Bacon” with “Antifragile”. I will probably find myself earwormed with the new Antifragile song long enough to get online and find it.
3) I’d form a fridge-shutting ritual, perhaps where I tap or drum on the internal fixtures of the fridge, and end with a vocal refrain reminding me to shut the door.
4) I would ask for the identity of a long-standing establishment near to the new business location, and search for that. More credibly, I’d probably wind up driving around aimlessly and getting hopelessly lost.
5) I’d go for a long (several mile) walk and talk to myself for a few hours about each part of the topic, imagining I’m explaining it to a second person. I’d then maintain a bullet-pointed running order on a sheet of paper while delivering the talk, and conversationally deliver each chunk. (Disclosure: I am quite terrible at presenting things in this fashion. No-one should take my advice on it, but I would suggest that memory is a relatively small part of the problem.)
6) I’d break it into three chunks of four numbers. 0004 5878 9625. Each of these chunks has its own rhythm that forms a kind of check-value for making sure I get it right. I’d say it to myself several times. I’d maybe type it out on a keypad a couple of dozen times if I really wanted to cement it. This method may be idiosyncratic to me and people like me, though. I tend to remember numbers pretty easily.
7) I don’t think there’s an easy solution to this, though I’d love to hear one. Prior to sleep is a really vulnerable time for memory formation.
8) This seems like asking “how can I remember something I haven’t remembered?” If you don’t remember something, you don’t remember it.
EDIT: Looking over other people’s answers it seems quite likely I’ve misinterpreted the above question, but I’m still not entirely sure what it’s asking.
9) Personally, 700 pages doesn’t seem that daunting. I’d probably break it down section by section and write out rough topic maps, so I know where in the overall space of the subject any given fact belongs. I’d also probably use Anki or something similar to reinforce specific facts and details. I find if you read stuff, write stuff and talk about stuff, that stuff tends to stick around in your head.
I notice that a lot of my answers are musical, rhythmical or aural in nature. On a related note, a category of memory-feat I’ve been engaged in a lot over the past year is remembering dance routines. The various processes for remembering them are unbelievably messy amalgams of what your body feels like, what the music is doing and what the names of the steps are. It’s like no other memory feat I’ve ever had to carry out.
Same here, I’d take that more as a challenge to my Anki (and general learning) skills. Knowing 700 pages of modern medicine? That’d be awesome! Sure sounds more interesting than 700 pages of accounting law.
The statistics textbook I carry around to read during my downtime, and some bits of which I’m ankifying, is around 500 pages long.
I think a average medicine text book has a higher information density than a statistics textbook.
Agreed.