MUST READ – Remember key critical data easily

Morning!

The sun is shining (not, as it’s still prior to the breaking dawn), the cows are mooing (also not true, we only have Macgyver deer out here) and the mooses are sprawled out by my feet (for once, a true statement!  One moose is gnawing on a deer bone while the other moose is happily dreaming of 34 feet of snow).  And it’s time for something you simply HAVE to read!

• Do you tweak your CSS?  Do you ever have any troubles remembering the order in which padding borders go?
• Or…do you have a specific series of steps you must follow for a particular project, that if you dare make a teeny weeny misstep, your painfully wrought hard work goes Buh-bye! with nary a backwards look?

Hmmmmmm?

If so, you can save yourself eons of dire soul-searing humanity-consuming calmness-destroying angst-enlarging agony by constructing simple key phrases and words that will serve as a memory tweepie.

For example, I hack my CSS quite often.  Yes I know, I do need a life, but hey.  These things happen.  Anywhos, I always (as in ALWAYS) used to forget the order in which padding is specified in form elements.  I’d think:

• Top Bottom Left Right

or perhaps

• Left Right Top Bottom

or even

• Screw Sides, Let’s Add Curves!

The proper order is

• Top Right Bottom Left

and here’s how you remember that:

TRouBLe

Ain’t that sooooo coolio it makes the Arctic in winter seem like a hot summer’s day?

The above is an example of how to remember critical thingees without pulling out what little hair might remain from raising 4 kids, 2 mooses and 12 free-flying Twitter Budgies.

This simple trick can be applied to virtually anything you need to remember.  For example, let’s say that you want to remember the clicker-style dog training techniques (which is

• Get the RIGHT behavior
• Mark (CLICK) the good behavior
• Give the dog a TREAT

You can take the first three letters, R, C and T, and remember:

• RoCkeT

This really isn’t anything new – do you remember our friend from 3rd grade science:

Roy. G. Biv?

That’s the colors of the rainbow:

• red
• orange
• yellow
• green
• blue
• indigo
• violet

Or our directional ability in planto biology…zip up the xylem and flow down the phloem?

Memory triggers that can help our daily work can be a time-saving value beyond belief!  Here are some more great resources to help you devise such goodies:

• 4 Memory Tips
• Memory Gym
• Memory tips from autistic savant
• Mnemonic Techniques and Specific Memory Tricks to improve memory, memorization
• Organizing Memory Tricks
• Retrain your Brain
• Want To Remember Everything You Learn?

So….whenever you find yourself forgetting everything required for a truly simple process, do yourself a favor and devise a key memory word or phrase.  That prior trouble will NEVER plague you again.

I promise.  🙂

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

ps – speaking about memory, have you seen: