Tips and Techniques for Memory Work

Whether for occupations, hobbies, or Freemasonry, remembering things, sometimes verbatim, becomes something we need to do. This can prove challenging, especially in today’s hectic world. It can prove incredibly rewarding to spend time learning something and find yourself capable of repeating it at will.

Teaching of the Seven Liberal Arts of the classical world (discussed again in a future post!), relied on the ability to memorise pieces of written work which aided education in ‘Grammar’ and ‘Rhetoric’. It is something seldom taught in the modern world, yet no less useful than it once was.

Here is one technique to help with this and more tips and techniques will come in the future. This is especially useful for new members and hopefully as we bring more, even some more experienced brethren may fin something useful.

If we take a poem such as Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’, one approach, which is the more traditional, is simply to read the poem over and over, then practice reading it without the written word, flicking back to double check. This has worked well for many over the centuries.

A method to speed this up involves reducing the written version to the initial letters in each word, so they act as a prompt for the memory. Starting, we reading the lines all the way through, without the abbreviation. This settles our minds into the rhythm and pattern.

Then we add the abbreviated version, with the full line below, as follows:

T R D I A Y W

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

A S I C N T B

And sorry I could not travel both

A B O T, L I S

And be one traveler, long I stood

A L D O A F A I C

And looked down one as far as I could

T W I B I T U

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

The main focus needs to be on the abbreviation, with eyes flicking to the full words below only when we are suddenly ‘stuck’ on what word a letter represents. A key skill with all memory work is to keep the brain working actively, so securing the new patterns in the mind.

Useful in this case, is to chunk letter together:

T R D          I A Y W

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

A S       I C N      T B

And sorry I could not travel both

A B    O T,       L I S

And be one traveller, long I stood

A L D O     A F    A I C

And looked down one as far as I could

T W I B      I T U

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

This provides two benefits.

Firstly to allow for a pattern or flow of speech. By ensuring there is a rhythm, it becomes easier for the mind to remember things.

Secondly you only have to remember 2-4 words at a time, in each chunk and then you let each chunk link into the next. This allows you to memorise a few words, flick your eyes back to the sheet, to jog the memory for the next bit, and try to remember the following bit without looking.

You then reduce the ‘written’ version to just the abbreviation:

T R D          I A Y W

A S       I C N      T B

A B    O T,       L I S

A L D O     A F    A I C

T W I B      I T U

To keep the flow, especially when the writing does not easily fit together, it is paramount to continue reading the piece all the way through, without long pauses, even if you have to keep looking back. This allows the memory to form as a whole. If you allow a pause the mind may struggle to know where it was supposed to go to next, without some kind of link. We will discuss linking sections, for longer pieces of memory work in another post.

If you do use this and find it useful, let us know how you get on and if you have a friend who might benefit then share it with them!