How to Remember Numbers

In almost everything we do, there are numbers involved - telephone numbers, credit card and ATM numbers, zip codes, passwords, calculations, and many others! Whether you love them or you hate them, numbers are here to stay. In order to cope up with today’s hectic lifestyle, you have to be able to remember a lot of numbers, or you’ll end up getting all confused and disorganized.

Contrary to words that can be associated with an object, numbers are difficult to remember because they are abstract. If I say think of a pen, your mind immediately visualizes the pen. But if I say 2473, you will have a hard time committing it to memory.

In this chapter, you’ll be taught various memory techniques to remember numbers better so you can perform your usual transactions quicker and more efficiently.

Senses

Your senses, particularly the ears and eyes, may prove to be effective in recalling numbers. Here’s how it works:

Repeat the number several times to yourself. It may be difficult for you to remember a number such as “2895” as an abstract thing, but easy for you to remember the sound of “twenty-eight ninety-five.”

You may also visualize the number. Write it down several times to lodge it to your memory bank. An even better idea is to create a vivid image of that number for better memory retention. Visualize “2895” beautifully laid out on a billboard in large sizes and luminous colors, with pieces of jewelry all around it. The number just follows you wherever you go. You see it everywhere. It’s on your bathroom mirror, on the TV screen, in the fireplace, it just won’t let you go! You can even intensify the image by making a jingle or slogan like “2895, I like you to jive!”

You may forget that the number of a certain house or office is 2895, but you may easily remember the sound of the spoken words "two-eight-nine-five," or the form of "2895" as you see it on the door of the place.

Association

The Law of Association may be used advantageously in memorizing numbers. For instance, one might remember the number 186,000 (the number of miles per second traveled by light-waves in the ether) by associating it with the number of his father's former place of business, "186." Another person may remember his zip code "1876" by recalling the date of the Declaration of Independence.