Filing Systems

Structure information in your mind

In ROM the first rule is Organisation. Organisation is there mainly to satisfy our left brain needs. However the left and right brain need to work together in order for it to work properly. This is why we use filing systems, they allow us to take information and structure it in our mind in the same way you would structure information in a network of folders on your computer.

To file information in our mind we use a visual image, in some systems this is often referred to as ‘Peg’, or ‘Location’, my preference is to call them all ‘files’. On these files you store information. These files remain constant and follow a specific order; to remember information we simply associate it to a file.

Here is an example of what would be called a Filing System:

Feet, knees, thighs, behind, waist, chest, neck, face, hair, ceiling

It uses different parts of the body as its files (visual images). So to remember lets say, eggs, rope and ketchup, you would associate eggs with feet, rope with your knees and ketchup with your thighs using the Rules Of Memorization. By doing this you can recall information in a specific order.

After many years of working with mnemonics filing systems have become part of the way that I think and remember. My goal is for them to become part of the way you think.

You are going to learn 3 basic ‘filing systems’, which allow you to memorize information in a structured order. They can be used for memorizing information at high speed.

Let us have a look at how these systems work, the best way to learn them, and how to put them into practice.

Body System

You have already had a glimpse at this one. We use different parts of our body as our mental files. To each one of these visual images we can associate information. Here is the list again:

  • Feet
  • Knees
  • Thighs
  • Behind
  • Waist
  • Chest
  • Neck
  • Face
  • Hair
  • Ceiling

To memorize the Body System is fairly easy, because when we start with our feet it is pretty obvious as we work our way up the body what is coming next.

Memorizing the Body System

  1. Take a deep breath in hold it for a second and as you breath out just feel yourself relaxing.
  2. Imagine your first image in the Body System which is feet, close your eyes, and out loud say the number “1”.
  3. Repeat this process for each image of the Body System up to 10.
  4. Work from 10 down to 1, imagining the image in your mind and repeating the number out loud.
  5. Repeat the whole thing 1 to 10 – 10 to 1 three times.
  6. Finally run through the whole system, forwards and backwards in your mind as quick as you can, just seeing the images as if you were fast forwarding and rewinding a movie. Do this until you are sure of the order of each image.

Now that you have memorized the Body System you are going to put it into practice by remembering some simple information.

Here are the 10 simple items you are going to memorize using the Body System:

  • Glass
  • Phone
  • Light bulb
  • Candle
  • Boat
  • Ice cream
  • Spanner
  • Statue
  • Spaghetti
  • Plant

To memorize these items – associate each one to one of your files, try and create your own associations, don’t worry if you get stuck there are examples below.

Associate your images together as quick as you can, then go back and add in senses, emotion, exaggeration and action – in time this will happen naturally. When you have finished run them forwards and backwards in your mind as quick as you can, remember this last step falls into the category of action, so from now on I will just remind you to incorporate action.

Here is an example of how to use your first filing system:

  • Imagine growing huge feet that turn into glass.
  • Imagine a red shiny phone tying your knees together and ringing loudly.
  • Imagine light bulbs attached to your thighs flashing on and off.
  • Candle associated with your behind? ( … leave that one to you I think!)
  • Imagine an elaborately designed boat sailing around your waist.
  • Ice-cream and chest? Remember, get your senses involved!
  • Imagine a big metal spanner attaching bolts to your neck.
  • Imagine your face is made out of marble like a statue.
  • Imagine your hair is made out of spaghetti, with lots of sauce.
  • Imagine tropical plants growing from the ceiling.

Notice how I have used ROM in these associations, your feet are not just made of glass, they are also huge and exaggerated, I imagine how the glass feels, involving my senses, it’s a bizarre image and therefore gets my emotions drawn in, and I see them growing and turning into glass relating to action. The same with the phone, I have made it red, shiny and ringing loudly, the light bulbs are flashing on and off and so on…

This simple filing system can be used to memorize items at high speed, with practice someone could literally real off ten items one after the other with no break in between and you could recite them in any order. Its limiting factor is that you can only memorize 10 items; however it is useful for remembering things on the spot, or simply showing off your techniques. With this system you wouldn’t keep anything on it for any length of time, it just isn’t big enough.

The Item System

The second filing system we are going to look at is often referred to as ‘The Item System’ as it uses various items as it visual files. These are great for remembering information at high speed.

The Item System is one of my favourite filing systems as it is very easy to create. In the past I have used it to memorize various lists, dance steps, speeches, showing off to friends in the pub (and taking their money) and games for the World Memory Championships; with it I was able to memorize a pack of cards in 1min 24 sec, which is still not as fast some, but not a bad effort all the same. It is basically my general system for things that need to be remembered quickly.

To create an Item filing system, you first need a building, the easiest one would be your home. From your home you are going to choose 20 different items to represent your visual files. To make these items easy to remember you are going to number them in an order. The easiest way to do this is by following these two steps:

  1. Pick 4 rooms from your home, in the same order as you would come to them as you walk through your front door. So if the first room you come to is your living room that will be number 1; the second room you come to might be your kitchen, that will be number 2; the third may be the bathroom, number 3 and the fourth might be the bedroom number 4.
  2. Pick 5 Items from each room, starting on your left hand side as you walk in the door and going round the room in a clockwise direction (try not to duplicate any items – 2 TV’s for example, if you do make sure they a visually distinctive). So if the first item on your left as you walk in the door is a table that will be number 1, if the second is a lamp that will be number 2, if the third is a TV that will be number 3, if the fourth is a bookshelf that will be number 4, and if the fifth is a sofa that will be number 5. From each room you will choose 5 different items.

Memorizing the Item System

  1. Take a deep breath in hold it for a second and as you breath out just feel yourself relaxing.
  2. Imagine your first image in the Item System, close your eyes, and out loud say the number “1″.
  3. Repeat this process for each visual file up to 20.
  4. Next, run through files 1 to 5, repeating them out loud. Then work backwards 5 to 1 repeating them out loud. Do this 3 times.
  5. Repeat step 4, for numbers 6 to 10; 11 to 15; 16 to 20.
  6. Now run through the whole system from 1 to 20 then 20 to 1 repeating them out loud.
  7. Finally run through the whole system, forwards and backwards in your mind as quick as you can, just seeing the images as if you were fast forwarding and rewinding a movie. Do this until you are sure of the order of each image.

Test this filing system out by associating 20 different things you would like to remember to your visual files.

You can create as many Item Systems as you like. It doesn’t have to be in your home, you could use your office, a bar or restaurant – as long as you have a room all you have to do is select items from that room in a clockwise order as your visual files. Don’t worry about knowing what numbers they are, just remember the order they come in. By doing this you can create a larger number of files.

The Location System

The location system can be used for either temporary information or long term information. Its advantage over the systems you have learned so far is that it is much larger and you can encapsulate more information in one visual file. Yet still memorize at high speed.

Let us take a look at how it is constructed. It is based on the principal of selecting different locations as your visual files along a particular journey. You pick a starting location and a finishing location, and then choose as many locations in between as you can think of. The locations themselves can be anything – a room, a hallway, a garden, the corner of a street, a bus stop, a bus or a tree in a park; basically your location is any area of space that you can instantly recognize.

An example of a location system might be a journey from your home to your work. You don’t need to remember what the numbers your files are, just the order they appear – numbering them just makes it easy to see how many you have got. I find it best to create at least 50 per journey. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical illustration:

living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, hallway, stairs, garden, car, corner, fence, postbox, chemist, island, tesco, tube entrance, inside station, tube stairs, platform, tube train, platform at oxford circus………….50. Office

This is the first 20 locations of a journey. It will finish at 50 which will be the office.

I find that the best way to create a new Location System is to choose the starting point which in this case would be living room and an ending point, which is the office. The living room is numbered 1 and the office 50. The next step is to fill in as many locations along the way as you can think of.

Now, chances are you might end up with less than 50, in which case you would go back and look at your system and if possible add in a few more locations you might have missed out. For example, there may have been a newsagent in between ‘inside station’ and the ‘tube stairs’, so you could add this in. You could continue to add in as many as possible until I came up with the number 50.

If there simply were not enough locations then another alternative would be to extend your journey – so if the office was number 38, you would add another mini journey onto the end of it to bring you up to 50. This might go from your office to the gym. By doing this you create a nice round number of files which help you feel more organised. Remember though, the numbers don’t really matter it is just the order the locations appear that is important.

Creating a Location System

Make sure you have the next 30 minutes free, grab yourself a clock or a stopwatch, a pen and paper or open a blank document on your computer. Okay, start your stopwatch or start timing yourself now.

Your first task is to name your Location System – so if it is a journey from home to work, call it home/work.

On your piece of paper or word document write down your starting location at the top and the finishing location at the bottom.

Take no more than 10 minutes to write down all the locations in between. Try and make your locations fairly close together, this makes it a lot easier to remember. You can use the example I gave above as a reference. Make sure you create at least 50. If you find you don’t have enough locations, take another mental journey from your work to say the gym or shopping centre, it doesn’t matter, as long as you end up with 50 locations. You may also find there are a lot more than 50 locations from your home to work. That’s fine, if there is a hundred, create a hundred. Whatever the number is just make sure it is a multiple of 10. Okay your 10 minutes start now.

Here is the fun step! Try to spend no more than 15 minutes on this section. It is time to memorize your Location System. To do this you follow, a slightly different procedure than you did with the item system, because with the locations you don’t need to memorize their numbers, just the order they come.

  1. Take a deep breath in hold it for a second and as you breathe out just feel yourself relaxing.
  2. Imagine your first location in your mind as clear as you can, and repeat, out loud the name of that location.
  3. Repeat this process for each visual file up to your last location, (do not spend more than 5 seconds on each one). Since this is a journey you know, and the locations follow a sequence, it will make it easier to remember.
  4. Next, work backwards from your last location to your first.
  5. Repeat this whole process 3 times.
  6. Finally, run through the whole system, forwards and backwards in your mind as quick as you can. Just seeing the visual files as if fast forwarding and rewinding a movie. Do this until you are sure of the order of each location.

Now that you have learned your Location System try putting it into practice and memorize 20-50 items or objects. Follow exactly the same procedure for memorizing them as you have done in the past. Making sure you apply all the Rules Of Memorization. So your first object is space shuttle, you will associate space shuttle with your first location. If the first location is your living room, you could imagine the shuttle flying around the room.

Try and complete this exercise as quick as possible, blast through the list of objects, taking no more than five seconds to associate each object. When you are done, run through it once adding in more of ROM, and run through it a second time as quick as you can. Then get a blank piece of paper and write down as many of the 50 objects you remembered as possible. This whole exercise should take no more than 15 minutes. Okay start the clock!

You can create as many Location Systems as you like – use mental journeys that you have taken from any point in your life – to your school or college, to the train station, the airport, a restaurant, places on holidays or to the beach, it really doesn’t matter. There are literally thousands of visual files you could create to aid you in memorizing information

NOTE: To create more files a good idea is sometimes to combine the Item System and the Location System.