Remembering Appointments, Dates, Events
How can I improve my ability to remember appointments?
You want to have an instant picture come to mind. Making associations for appointments. If it's a one o'clock appointment, you want to see the person who's coming into your office at one o'clock and see a big number one connected to them. You can create a system. If it's a four o'clock appointment, you might just see a big four on the person that's coming into your office. Now you don't have to look at your calendar because you might not be close to that calendar when you say, 'who's coming in at four?' now you see the person because the four is on his little T-shirt that he's wearing. So you're setting up a system again. But there are other systems called key systems and queue systems where you can have whole schedule of your day or your week or the month. It's called a visual key system, where you have a whole calendar in your mind where you're assigning numbers to the calendar in picture form.
What is a "visual key" system?
A good way to remember anniversaries, birthdays and appointments is to develop some type of a key system. A key system is coming up with a exact word or symbol to represent the number. That will allow you to make the association with the person, place or appointment that it's going to represent. You think of that key word, whatever's connected to it should come back with it.
How can I improve my ability to remember important dates?
To remember important appointments and dates, from birthdays to anniversaries, develop a key system that you can refer to, such as visualizing a number that goes with that particular date. And then every time you have an appointment, you can scan those keys very rapidly. For example, if a person has a birthday on the 14th of July, you might think of 14 as a valentine's box. You might think of July as a firecracker. So if you have the firecracker on the valentine's box, that's George's birthday. He's holding the valentine's box with a firecracker, so you know his birthday is July 14th.
How can a "numerical alphabet" help me remember?
The key system that I use and that I published, is developing a visual key word based upon a numerical alphabet, where each word represents a number and a number will reflect you back to that particular word. The word tail, t-a-i-l is always a number 15, because 1 is a "t", "l" is a 5. That's a key system using a numerical alphabet. It's a matter of knowing exactly where those keywords lie. It's a mental filing system.
What are some examples of a numerical alphabet?
Five equals L because when you hold up five fingers, it looks like an L. Six looks like a J, when you turn it around and three is an M, because when you take the M and turn it up, it looks like a three. A nine is a P, as if you turn it around, the nine becomes the P. Now these are consonants that have numerical values, the vowels have no value. T is one because it has one stroke. So if I give you the word "mat" like a welcome Mat, M is three, T is one and the A has no value. Six is our J, so Sixty-one, a J and a T, creates the word Jet, like a jet-plane; it is always number sixty-one. This is a very simple system called the numerical alphabet.
How can I better remember dates or people in history?
Remembering all the names of the presidents, again, with developing a system. The presidents are numbered, number 1, number 2, number 3. Everybody knows George Washington. Two Adams. I want you to wiggle your Adam's apple two times. Go one, two, see it, one, two. Three Jefferson. I want you to see little Jeff here. He's three years old. How old is little Jeff? He's three. He's got a T-shirt that says I'm three years old. Fourth president Madison. I want you to see momma with a huge spoon, she has four children in front of her and she says, "I want you to take your Madison four times a day. Medicine, Madison. So, second president, what do you do? Adams, two times only, wiggle it, right? Third president. How old is that little kid? What's his name? My name is what? Jeff for Jefferson. And the fourth president, what did momma say? Take your Madison, medicine four times a day. You've got the first few presidents. You can create associations for all the presidents.
