Longer Lists

What if you have an extremely long list of items to remember? Try breaking it down into more suitable sub-chains and apply same rules as above. Better still – see if you can organize list better, put similar or like items together. Are you able to form acronyms from any of items? Can you separate list in such a way that acronyms form words and then you can combine these words? Remember, more ridiculous thought – stronger impact and better it will stay in your memory.

It helps if either acronyms or associations you create can form mental images. What you can see in your mind is very strong and stronger something is, better you can play with it and easier it will be to remember. What may be difficult at first will come with practice.

Sketching Details

Visualization is a very strong skill. Try thinking in pictures and forms. When you have to remember directions – use a series of arrows to lay out route. If you have to remember blood flow in body – wouldn’t it be easy to lay out a diagram of heart, lungs and other organs and then add arrows to point direction? Wouldn’t that be easier to remember than a simple word description? Associate a certain shape with a certain organ and then it becomes even more vivid.

Relate Facts

If a piece of information doesn’t relate to you, then try finding something about it that does. For example, human body has 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Kind of hard to believe? Think that that means ten round-trip drives between Los Angeles and New York and it will take on meaning.

Do you have to remember physical dimensions for a room or a field? Compare it to something you know already. If you’re a sports fan, chances are you can picture size of playing field. How does that compare to space you are trying to remember – bigger smaller, would it fit into a football field – how many times?

For more free techniques send a blank e-mail to mailto:memorize@getresponse.com

This is Babe Ruth replying when asked HOW he hit home runs like he did, “I like to,” his assumption being that rest of us could, if only we wanted to or “liked to”. He couldn’t even grasp question. Often with innate strengths it’s “the last thing fish knows about is water.”

.2. Write your Personal Mission Statement. (http://www.franklincovey.com/missionbuilder/index.html ). Define your values, principles, and what matters to you. Then use this as a touchstone for making decisions and setting priorities and goals.

If your organization needs a Mission Statement, write one collaboratively, if possible. Getting everyone behind “mission,” “bigger picture,” will add to communal work satisfaction.

2. Attach meaning to what you do, what your department does, your organization does, and help others feel mission in it.

The person who’s answering phone, for instance, isn’t “just answering phone,” they’re representing your company to public and a key player in success of your group mission.

If you feel your work isn’t meaningful, and can’t be, then you have some “recrafting” to do.

4. Get a good organizational system. I use “Don’t Die at 50 Weekly Organizational Calendar ™” and Gooding Accountability System ™”. These will work if you work them.

5. Develop your emotional intelligence; it matters more to your success and happiness than your IQ, and it can be learned. Take an assessment, an Internet course, work with a coach, read, and practice.

6. Engage services of a coach. This will greatly shorten your learning curve re: how you apply your Strengths and how well you develop your EQ, and he or she will hold your feet to fire on accountability until it becomes second nature.

So there’s a formula: Knowing your signature strengths and crafting your life around them, defining and managing your values and mission which allow meaning, and actually accomplishing this because you’ve become organized.

Lastly, stay connected. In an interview, Mother Teresa was asked, “You’ve been in India dealing with illnesses like cholera and AIDS. What’s worst illness you’ve ever seen?” and she replied without blinking an eye, “The worst illness I have ever seen is loneliness and isolation in West.”

So, in conclusion, whether or not “pleasures” can occur in workplace, deeper satisfactions of life can and your job can be one path to happiness. If you’re leader, more opportunities for personal growth, development of potential, respect for strengths, opportunities for personal excellence, and “flow” you facilitate, happier everyone is likely to be, and therefore more productive.

It could be that employees are more after this sort of experience than pizza parties and hoopla.