What Can I Do To Improve My Memory and Thinking?
- To improve your ability to recall verbal information, make an effort to pay more attention to and spend more time on important material. Making eye contact with and attending to the body language of the person speaking will help you to recall information more completely.
- Use a single prominent calendar or appointment book to keep all appointments and important dates.
- Designate a “memory place” where important items (e.g., keys, medications, information needed for the next day’s appointment) are routinely kept. The memory place can then be regularly checked before leaving the house.
- Place reminders in prominent places, such as putting a post-it note at eye level on the garage door to remind you to check the memory place before leaving the house.
- Use a “memory book” for recording important information, phone numbers, and appointments.
- To remember long numbers, try to remember them as 3 or 4 number “chunks” rather than as a string of single numbers. For example: Remember 2-0-5-9-3-4-3-4-5-4 as 205 934 3454.
- For remembering lists of words or facts, try to put them into a story that ties them together. Remembering (and visualizing) the story greatly helps to remember the words.