On a road trip with my family recently and whilst they slept I listened to an audio book on memory, learning and speed-reading aptly titled “Limitless” by Jim Kwik.
It is a hands on book with exercises so not exactly the best book to read whilst driving but I persisted.
To my joy, one of the techniques Jim teaches is the use of stories to memorise and importantly recall otherwise seemingly random things like lists of words.
One list he used in an exercise was the first ten elements of the periodic table. A list I had not looked at in almost 40 years. In less than 2 minutes he used a story to help memorise the list which I can proudly say I still remember weeks later.
Here is the fun part, I told the story to my 14 year old daughter who had struggled to name any of the first ten and can now also recite them correctly in order and even backwards.
The power of stories goes far beyond telling a good yarn.
The book is amazing and has put a whole new perspective on how to learn.
Footnote: I extended the story and my daughter and I can now recall the first 20 elements 🙂
