How can you train yourself to have a photographic memory?
At the latest after watching the movie “Limitless”, (by the way, I hereby give a clear recommendation for this movie) I dreamed of having a photographic memory.
Eddie Morra, the main character in the movie, managed it only with the help of a new wonderful drug, but he was able to remember everything he read and knew, everything that once came under his eyes. And that’s what I want, too.
Just imagine reading a book and being able to remember everything, every single fact and everything that’s important. And the short answer is - yes, you can train yourself to have a photographic memory.
If you want to read more posts like this and in much more detail, then subscribe to my completely free newsletter now. You can expect high quality posts like this one free of advertising.
The Method
While it is possible, it still involves a learning process for a ‘normal’ person.
“The Zettelkasten Technique” is a technique of the German scholar Niklas Luhmann.
With the help of this technique he was able to write about 70 books and over 400 scientific articles and that only because he had all the knowledge in his head, more precisely in his “note box”.
This method helps you to categorically store what you have learned, or even things you have read, and remember them in the long term.
The most important thing about your notes is that if they have a reference, such as a link to a previously recorded thought or a quote from a book, that they also record what is being linked to, so you must then, for example, name the line and the book title or refer to a previously written card. First of all, you need to know how memory works in order to work on it.
The Steps To Remembering
In order to be able to remember something efficiently, you have to make a personal reference to it and associate something, usually visual, i.e. a picture, with it.
So you take a card, I prefer to use A6 cards, and write at the top what you want to remember, so to speak the headline. Then you write on the left side, a short explanation, preferably as personal as possible and not a quote from a Wikipedia article. Then at the bottom right you write your personal reference, an example or something funny about it, an absurdity.
By the way, this is also a technique used by Elon Musk, who is certainly known for his brilliant memory. On top of it you draw a small picture, which describes the thing you have to remember in a way that is understandable for you personally.
It is important that you do not look for inspiration on the Internet or something similar, it should be completely personal to you and preferably as absurd as possible, but just so that you can link this image well and thus remember it.
If you now have a few such cards, you can put them on your desk, for example, so that it becomes your routine when you are bored to take the stack with your cards and go through them, so you remember them in any case sooner or later. Then if you do want to be a little more active, you can go through the cards with some learning techniques like Space Repetition or Active Recall.
The Reason It Works
I think it’s important that you have the cards on paper and write them yourself, a Japanese study showed that when you learn with things written on paper you learn up to 37% more than when you save them on your phone or iPad.
Of course, for people who prefer to work digitally, there are also many apps that are good for learning, I can recommend Anki.
Finally, let’s summarize the steps once again:
- read and record the information
- structure what you have written down, i.e. if it is a longer text, summarize it in bullet points
- write on an index card
- heading
- short description/explanation (left side)
- personal reference, example or absurdity (bottom right)
- visual anchor/small picture that you can easily connect with what you have learned (top right)
4. review and learn
If you follow all these steps, you will remember everything you want to remember and for a long time.
This may not be a photographic memory like you see in movies, but it will help you a lot in learning.
Write in the comments if it helped you learn. I wish you a lot of success in learning.
I have recently written a book about this which I will be publishing soon. In the book, the topics here are discussed in much more detail and I give lots of extra tips and techniques. If you’re interested, sign up for my newsletter by October 1st 2024 and you’ll get the book for free.
You can go further now, or take your chance. Do you take the blue or the red door?
If you want to read more posts like this and in much more detail, then subscribe to my completely free newsletter now. You can expect high quality posts like this one free of advertising.
