The mental filing system has a special application immeasurably useful to every one of us in almost every aspect of our lives — its use in remembering numbers. Telephone numbers, addresses, important dates in history, birthdays, anniversaries are only a few of the items you’ll be able to fix in your mind now that you know the key words. The ability to remember numbers sometimes means the difference between making or losing a sale or passing or flunking a course in school. You’ve surely known crises when a number remembered correctly would have meant everything to you.
I’ve shown that it is far easier for the mind to retain a vivid image than a completely abstract number. Substituting the key words for numbers, and composing a picture with them, is the trick. Here is a number: 7189. Using the key words for the numbers, we get policeman, alarm clock, revolving door, mailbox. These form themselves into a picture readily. Close your eyes and see a policeman throwing an alarm clock through a revolving door and hitting a mailbox. Visualize every bit of the scene clearly — the policeman’s brass buttons dazzlingly bright, the shattered glass as the alarm clock crashes through the revolving door, and the broken mailbox surrounded by spilled letters. If the image is vivid enough, you’ll never forget the number: 7189.
7189.
7189.
Close your eyes and see a policeman throwing an alarm clock through a revolving door and hitting a mailbox.
7189.