The Fast Emotion Memory Hack

This is a very simple, very easy-to-use memory technique. You can learn to do it in one minute.

Having a strong emotional response to a stimulus tends to reinforce your memory of that stimulus. One could even argue (as some psycho-neurologists have), that the emotional response exists in order to make strong stimuli easier to learn from.

So, as a memory exercise, try this:

Whenever you experience a stimuli you wish to remember, immediately *create* an emotional reaction.

Key words:

Immediately - while you're still in the presence of the stimulus. And do it quickly. Attempt to complete this entire exercise in less than a second.

Create- most experiences are close to being emotionally neutral. However, we can expect some small tendency in some direction. Identify the tendency and then amplify it by saying to yourself, "that makes me feel X." If you can't identify a natural tendency, choose an emotional reaction. I suggest choosing positive reactions the majority of the time. When you choose a reaction, consciously amplify it by constructing a particular reason for feeling that way.

When you wish to remember a particular moment that you've coded with "fast emotion," you have multiple options for entry.

1. Recall the tangible, real-world context and work inward.
2. Recall the constructed reason for feeling the way you felt and work sideways.
3. Replay the emotion itself and work backward.

The nature of this technique lends itself most readily to concise, discrete events. You can use these events, however, to reconstruct a much larger context. By sprinkling moments of fast emotion through an experience, you can make the whole thing more memorable.

A bit of advice: Don't try to be consistent- matching the same emotion to the same stimulus each time it reoccurs. Rather, use the conflict between, for instance, positive and negative reactions to make both stimuli more memorable.

This technique can be used to see your surroundings- especially your personal artifacts- as mnemonic anchors. When you look at something you haven't already coded with fast emotion, the most prominent emotional content of your history with that item should tend to pop to the foreground. Firm anchors can be re-used numerous times.