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Tools and Techniques for Improving your Memory?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "Like many of you, I'm a IT drone trying to complete various tech certifications. My question is simple: how do you manage to remember all this junk? A lot of it comes naturally to me, but remembering which commandline switch does what or remembering some obscure reference to a tool sometimes causes me to blank on a test. Instructor-led courses seem to be a very expensive, very general overview of material, which almost require you to buy your own study guides to get more complete details. After you leave said classroom, you don't remember most of the topic anyway (Dilbert's 'I summon the
vast power of Certification!' come to mind). So I ask the Slashdot crowd: what tools or memory techniques do you use to retain and remember the information you learn?"
Use it a lot, and you won't even have to think about it. My firewalling forces passive FTP, so from now on i'll remember that it's wget --passive-ftp, because I use wget to FTP files and directories frequently. Similarly, i've memorized the fact that du -hc --max-depth=1 in the root directory will give me a nice report on where my GBs are going, because I do that a lot. And I can do ssh/scp in my sleep :)
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
I've never seen anything in the strong science category, but here are some (perhaps placeboes) that have helped me from time to time.
/. during compiles for example :-)) are better able to remember the details of what they are doing. The brain is pretty crummy at task switching.
1) Phosphatidyl Choline is a precursor to acetyl choline a neurotransmitter associated with memory
2) I've used machines and programs (sadly none of which I can reference right now) that produce sound in stereo such that the left and right ears recieve offset signals and this is supposed to help the different sides of the brain communicate. I don't know what, if any, brain effect this has beyond a white noise that helps me concentrate with fewer distractions, but I find this technique to be so successful that the reason I can't reference a program right now is that I burned some of this noise onto a CD years ago and have been using it as needed ever since. The literature on the subject claims that different frequencies do different things and I find this to be true in my case, suggesting that there is more going on than simply white noise blocking out background. For example, one of the tracks on my CD is supposed to bring you down to a sleep like state. If I use this while trying to work I get very strong headaches. Not something I want to repeat over and over, but I've done it a few times to see if it was reproducable. It was.
3) Pressure. Most people don't think well under pressure. Don't fall into the downward spiral of getting pissed that you can't remember something. It will only make it harder to remember more stuff.
4) Concentration. 2 touches on this, but it's a fact that people who concentrate on one task (instead of reading
I was able to recall this entire URL by using this product.
Someone once told me when I was in college, I think it was one of my engineering professors, that you don't go to college to learn, you go there to learn how to learn. I can't begin to tell you how true that has turned out to be.
At the start of a new project, you're usually at the bottom of the learning curve, now do you memorize all the new specfications there are about the project? No, you research them, understand them, and pool together the resources you will need to find information on that topic. I still open my first year C programming book at least a few times a month, and looking at a man page to get some info on a command line switch is a very common occurence also. Engineering specs. for whatever project I'm working on are always close at hand too. A search on the internet to verify and find out more info on a topic also very common. I think about all the classes I took in college and what percentage of that actual knowledge I use on a daily basis and its probably around 10-20%. Now if I look at all the stuff I've learned since then, enormous. And the more you learn, the more you learn how much more there is to learn. (sorry for all the cliche-like lines, but they're really true)
So basically, what I'm trying to say here, is take the stuff you learn in class as a seed, and then use it to grow from, you don't have to retain all that information, just know that you can find it if you need it at some point.
Hope that helps...
KidA
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Get married. Your spouse will remember all those little things you would rather forget.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I'd like to add these two suggestions to what the others said:
There's a very easy method for remembering everything. You just...uhhh...ehhh...damn, I forgot again.
It it really very simple, you just forget something that you already know, and the new knowledge can take it place. Just be careful what you forget, Like that time I took the wine makeing class and I forgot how to drive. Doh!
When I forget a command, I start typing a command that sounds appropriate and keep hitting the TAB key (auto completion) until the right command shows up. From that point adding --help usually brings up the switches you need and if all else fails man [command] does the trick. While this will not work on a test, it is a good method when you are on the actual machine.
The only sure-fire method to remembering a certain command is use. I bet no one here has forgotten about ls (to the point that I always end up typing it in DOS too) but some of the other obscure commands that you might use once in a blue moon are easily forgotten so you just need to use them more.
Disclaimer: TAB completion doesn't work in all shells so YMMV.
For Windows 2000 users out there, never fear. You too can have TAB completion with nothing more than a simple registry change.
Personally, when I had to start a new job and learn unfamiliar technology, I decided to quit smoking pot. That was a couple years ago and I really do feel that my mind is much sharper for having quit. Also, I discovered that the small but ever present gut I had been toting around since high school pretty much went away on its own. I have a feeling it was a munchie-induced gut.
If you don't smoke pot, I still have a tip for you. Good people. Thats right, make sure you have at least a few genuinely supportive and happy people in your life. Your mind can do so much more if it's secure and at ease with your life. My 2 cents.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
Here are two that I've found:
Brainwave Generator - Handy windows program with builtin presets to do all the things you mentioned. This is probably the program you used.
Cool Edit Pro - This software has a Brain Synchronizer built in to allow you to create your own subliminal messages and brain synchronizer sounds.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Many involve using visualization, or audiorhythms - both techniques (and others) were probably used to help storytellers remember stories like the Iliad and the Odyssey. But if it's junk, why do you want to remember it. Remember this: in general useful things will eventually stick. Useless book-larnin won't.
There are a number of good books showing how to improve memory. There is a long history of this, starting with Simonides of Ceos. Try Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, University of Chicago Press, 1966. Or for a shorter book that contains many exercises and tricks [how to memorize all of the states of the U.S. in alphabetical order in a way that you can recite it backwards, forwards, or starting from any point, etc], and other such tricks, try Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas, The Memory Book, Ballantine Books, New York, 1974.
I always hated things like memorizing which options are on which menus, and what obscure letter combination makes the command-line version do what obscure task.
Those things are all available via reference. Reference books/tools(like `man`) are good things. Actually LEARNING how something works is always better than simply MEMORIZING how to do something specific.
f'rinstance, it's simple to tell someone that you need to chmod 755 a CGI script to get it to work right, but the real value is in learning what those three numbers actually mean, why 7s and 5s and how to apply the concept of permissions to things other than CGI.
I know I didn't really answer your question.. just expressing a beef I have about (pseudo-)education.
These things really drain the old grey matter of it's retentive capacity.
It worked for you when (if?) you had to memorize multiplication tables. Flashcards really help learning definitions.
Once you know what something is, you've gotta know what it does. I'm a chemist, so once I could recognize a reaction (on flashcards), I made myself draw out the mechanism and list what it was used for. My brother even worte a simple program for me, so I had to select the right series of radio buttons showing the steps of the mechanism.
Using the info, either by actually employing it or by repeating it in drills, really helps too.
Good luck in your certification studying.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
A phrase we used to use a lot in my old job.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned mind maps yet.
Does anyone out there actually use them? I have a friend who uses them religiously and he's quite well known for amazing people with the amount of subject detail he's able to repeat on request.
1. Rote memorization: drill yourself on command names and functions. Practice matching the command name with the definition, and vice versa. Do this often so it sticks.
2. Frequent use: incorporate what you are learning into your daily work as much as you can. This will make you more fluent in what you are learning, and give concrete demonstrations of behavior. Of course, we are also more likely to remember things we use often.
3. (Perhaps most important) Associations and relations: trying to remember a bunch of discrete names and definitions isn't necessarily especially helpful, particularly when the amount of stuff you have to keep straight gets large. In doing the character memorization, I've found such relations as "looks like", "same character as another word", "doesn't look like", etc to be helpful. For command memorization you can expand this to include "behaves like", "does the opposite of", etc. Putting your knowledge in context can help with the times when you "blank out". Also, many command names and options are based around mnemonics, so trying to understand these can be helpful.
All this aside, the people who have commented that the ability to find information is much more important than the ability to spit back memorized stuff are absolutely correct. While it is obviously vital to have some baseline level of knowledge in your line of work, I am somewhat dubious about employers that emphasis certifications and knowledge of obscurities, rather than problem solving ability and the ability to learn new skills if necessary.
---- I'm going to lead you kicking and screaming, giggling and laughing into the future.
I'm an EE student, so I don't have to memorize much, but when tested on some sort of list I have used this method, apples verilog australia branch = Amy's very awesome butt.
Rather than understanding or the ability to look things up, certification tests often require regurgitation of facts. Here are my suggestions for ROUTE memorization:
1) Physiological: Get proper sleep diet and lifestyle as much as possible. Makes everything else easier. Drink plenty of water.
2) Mnemonics: I still remember mnemonics I used for things years ago, can't even recite the alphabet without hearing the alphabet song from kindergarten! To remember 802.x standard numbers for Network+ I used 802.3 = "Threethernet" (ethernet), 802.5 = "Five TOKEN RING" sung to 12 days of Christmas, etc... It's easy to see that the numbers in this example are arbitrary and have no "understanding based" way of associating to the subjects to which they correspond, which is why mnemonics are so helpful here. Making mnemonics funny, dirty or otherwise memorable will help you remember them.
3) Primacy/Recency effect: Study in short bursts, periodically interrupt your study for breaks. This is because you recall better what you studied at the beginning and end of your sessions.
4) Repetition: Use flashcards or software (I wrote my own) to drill on those things that are particulary hard to memorize. Actually making your own questions is harder than learning them once they are made, but this is good because...
5) Study actively: You will remember things better if you take your own notes. Write things down, ask questions, note down anything you don't know. Recite things outloud. Invloving sight(reading), touch(writing) and sound(reciting) increases your "neurological involvement" with the subject matter, which makes a huge difference in your ability to recall.
I can also recomend:
Audiowhiz makes cd's for specific tests. Listen during your commute. Their site seems to be down now, but do a search and you'll find them from other vendors.
A book called "The Einstein Factor" by Win Wenger, Richard Poe. Offers a bunch of novel, creative techniques, not just the same old junk that most memory books regurgitate. I can't guarantee all these will work for you (especially Photoreading), but they are worth a try.
also see nomis80's post which is dead on.
-"No, I don't want any pot. Can you score me some smart drugs?"
Cool Edit can do this (as well as AutoZen for Linux), it's called "hemispheric synchronization" (among other terms) where you play left and right channels slightly off-beat, thereby causing a "beat" inside your head (or that's what it sounds like). And after a while your brain-halves start to synchronize on the beat frequency, the lower it is the more drowsy you'll become. Normal state has dominant frequencies in EEG of something like 12 Hz, whereas deep sleep is like 3 Hz (I may remember those incorrectly, but you get the idea how low-freq the beat is).
Right now, this is one of my most frustrating problems.
:)
Having really b0rked my life royally by screwing up in school, I decided to go back and complete some of my education and also get a qualification relating to computers (which incedentally I'm annoyed about too, cause linux was axed from the sylabus).
So, I'm sitting in maths class and I'm thinking to myself "What's the fscking point in this? I'm not learning anything, I'm just sat here doing exercises". I wasn't learning how to apply it, I was sitting there, doing exercises and it was doing zero good whatsoever. So I try memorizing HOW to do this problem, and what order I'm meant to do things.
I wasn't learning why and how I was applying numbers to solve the problems, I was just memorising the path it took to solve the problem. Nothing gained.
So then I'm sitting at home and I was thinking about it, and I was trying to figure out just WHY I was doing this and that to get to a specific answer. I wasn't trying to use my already memorised methods, I was trying to work WHY the method worked. Then it made sense, and now I know I won't forget it.
So I guess what the other guys are saying is true. Don't try to memorise, learn how to apply what you're learning. It's a slower process, but why are you in such a rush? I'd rather have knowledge I understand how to use, than instructions on how to use it.
So that was a little unorganised (and a bit of a pointless rant), but that's what I'm gonna work on next