Remember Anything

No matter what your station in life right now, whether you are a student or a senior citizen or fall somewhere in between there is a time and a place for you to remember complex lists of information. To do this you have likely used mnemonics.
For those who do not know mnemonics is the process of using key memory techniques to remember almost anything. The September song is a good example of mnemonics at work helping us recall how many days each month has.

Acronyms
An acronym is a word or group of letters that actually stand for something else. Take for instance the word radar, we have come to accept it as a part of our vocabulary, but did you know it is actually an acronym that stands for Radio Detection And Ranging?  This is an example of the acronym creating a new word altogether however it is possible to make your own acronym out of words that already exist, take for instance BRASS, this is a mnemonic representation of shooting technique, breathe, relax, aim, sight and squeeze. Easy to recall and the brass has an association with firearms both of which are key elements of successful mnemonics. Acronyms are also often simply a collection of letters that make no intelligible word like fyi, diy or lol.
Popular Acronyms:
•    Lol- Laugh out loud, this made popular in chat rooms and text messaging.
•    Fyi- For your information
•    Diy- Do it yourself.

Acrostic
This is a method by which you create a sentence with the first letter of each word being a clue to what you need to remember. A great example is ‘please excuse my dear aunt Sally’ this is the order of operations for algebraic equations; Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction. Over the years, this one has also become an acronym for college level students, instead of saying the whole sentence it has evolved into PEMDAS.
Popular Acrostics
•    My very eager mother just sent us nine peaches- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  A memory technique to recall the nine planets of the solar system.
•    Every good boy does fine- E, G, B, D & F. The order of G-clef notes on sheet music.

Association
Most mnemonics fall into some sort of association technique. These can be expanded to fit your particular needs. Take for instance the need to take certain medications on specific days. You could use the name of the drug as a clue say amoxicillin, a must until the weekend. If the name of the pill is too long or complex then using, the color, or shape of the medication is another memory trick. Yellow pills could be bananas, blue could be blueberries ECT…. Anything that makes remembering them simpler.

Conclusion
Memory can be a tricky thing; things you swore you would never forget now swim around un-retrieved in the back of your mind. To limit this from happening mnemonics takes every day mundane things and makes them more fun and interesting and therefore more easily retrieved.  Try it today for the important things in your life that you need to remember.

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