Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Organizing ABC lists

Hello. I recently finished listening to the Memory Optimizer course. This might be a question more for Vera Birkenbihl's circle of influence but while there is a reference to her forums in the course materials there are no instructions for how to register!

I was unable to find any posts regarding ABC lists. I hope someone here is interested in the memory optimizer but if not I understand.

I somewhat understand the concept of ABC lists but not completely. As I understand them, they are lists that are simultaneously data we want to remember in their own right, but also memory pegs that we can relate NEW information to.

(Posting occurred prematurely before I was finished typing...bear with me...)

So far so good. Is there any particular reason that ABC lists would be ordered and alphabetized? Not all information has any particular order, but I'm betting there is a reason, or else maybe I misunderstood something.

I'd like to start a conversation so I can get these ABC lists set up right the first time. The course materials were not entirely explicit.

I'm planning to use them to expand general information in several topics of interest. For example I have a seed and tuber sales business, and I want to remember the names of the crops in the languages of my overseas partners. Not a particularly useful way to learn foreign language but I want to make sure that I have specific words at my disposal. Could also come in handy for organizing communications, to have my list available off the top of my head.

I also want to memorize lists of names of farm machinery (I am not a farmer which is why I need to learn it from scratch), and lists of words associated with various technologies. Mundane stuff that is useful to me.

I'll use them for other purposes as well but wanted to start with something immediately useful to me.

Much obliged for insights.

A=1 B=2 C=3 etc.

The ABC list offers both order and a hook for linking complex information.

The anchorman list helps you to learn the numerical placement of the alphabet. It's amazing how few people realise that H is the eight letter in the alphabet.

This gives you two hooks, the number which and the image you've given it.

Second if you use the ABC list to remember aspects of a book for example. You have a way of knowing which information is missing. With the missing you can apply memory gap management.

ABC list are also useful for studying. You can be standing in a bank queue and decide to review your farm machinery. Working your way though the ABC list you can use the first letter of the machinery and further enhance it by having it interact with your anchorman list. When too many start with the same letter the anchorman list is a better option. Write it up once and then play with remembering it.

There are a number of ABC list on the forum created during 2004 to 2006. We have played with it on the forum in the past.

Alex

Thank you, Alex. I am impressed with all the help you have given on this forum.

>>>Second if you use the ABC list to remember aspects of a book for example. You have a way of knowing which information is missing. With the missing you can apply memory gap management.

I still need to get my head around this. I understand that I'm supposed to write down what I do know and remember, and the associations that I make from that information. Detecting gaps is the part that is puzzling...though I do understand that being puzzled is a sign that information is missing about memory gap management itself. I'll just try it and see if I notice a pattern regarding filling in the gaps.

>>When too many start with the same letter the anchorman list is a better option.

Thanks, I was wondering about that. What I have found so far is that through creative license and having multiple lists I can organize a lot of information where it's not critical that lists be exhaustive, without running into alphabetization problems. If lists of things to memorize do need to be ordered especially if it needs to be exhaustive, then I'll probably usually need to use a separate peg list.

I figured out that the anchorman list was useful for translating letter order to numeric order. I don't have the list memorized yet (I should in a day or two) but oddly enough some of the most counter-intuitive memory pegs are the ones that stuck! Probably due to sheer novelty. I remember k -> kilo -> 11 "because 11 places of decimal accuracy are enough to measure the distance from the earth to the center of the galaxy to within inches". How we got from kilos to inches and what that has to do with precisely 11 decimal places accuracy and why my brain picked that one it is just one of those mysteries.

I've also figured out that getting information in is the easy part, its accessing the information the first time or two that's the hard part. Hence the relationship between the memory optimizer and photoreading.

If this system works out for me I will likely teach it to my toddler daughter when she's a little older. Instead of feeding random unrelated information to her the way my older kids were instructed, give her matrices of keywords related to the major themes for the week.

I'd also like to start developing it for monologuing. The idea is to talk intelligibly for 10 minutes without notes in front of a video camera, using lots of anecdotes, jokes, or other devices to keep interest level high, post it on youtube, and use the video to attract attention to various projects.

Almost have the anchorman list memorized. All it took was one more listening to the dialog. This time I was listening more actively than last time, and thereby visualizing the associations a little more clearly.

I think I've figured out "intelligent gap management". I think my confusion was trying to apply it to types of memorization problems that need a different approach than the one discussed in the dialog. I think the dialog spent too much time emphasizing what NOT to do (don't have negative thoughts regarding information you can't currently reconstruct), but as we all know from our NLP training it's better to tell people what to do because you can't visualize a "not".

I think what I've really learned is not so much how to deal with teachers and textbooks that present material almost totally dysoptimally, but instead, how to teach and write the right way. I've gotten some ideas for how to present new material in ways that take advantage of existing memory threads, that prime the brain to pay attention to specific key points, and to activate the new learning.

The aim of explaining intelligence gap management is firstly to understand if you forget, it's not because your memory was faulty. It's because you haven't done something to help you remember. Hence you have a gap in the memory if you say "I forgot."

The ABC list is one way of creating a discussion, monologue. I like Analograffiti for that. You can write the subject in the middle and use the letter pegs to create the monologue. The Anchorman list (the letters from it can help memorising longer stories.) Analograffiti is briefly explained in the manual. Be sure to look in the manual for the tips. There are many there that are not in the recordings.

Alex