The below is a detailed list of factors to consider when trying to improve your memory. Links to software and services here are typically just examples you may find useful and not specific endorsements. If you have other services that could be added here and others may find useful please let me know.

Global factors

• Mood is a background influence on all of our cognition. If you suffer from stress, from anxiety or depression, you may find it useful to see a psychologist. Decreasing this stress will help you focus and function more efficiently in daily life. Your psychologist will likely help you to learn specific methods to use in daily life to improve how you deal with stress and anxiety. This is often a short-term process–you may see someone weekly for three months or so. If you do not find your anxiety or stress is decreasing, or if you feel the psychologist is not a good fit, you are always free to ask to see a different psychologist or therapist. You should not find, though, that you are continually moving from one therapist to another.

• Finding a psychologist. Generally:

  • a clinical psychologist has completed a PhD in helping people change the way they think, and understand who they are, to decrease their suffering. A clinical psychologist has expertise that other professionals, such as marriage and family therapists (“MFTs”), counsellors, and social workers do not have (these professionals receive different training).

  • A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who tries to change the way they think and alleviate suffering primarily through medication (typically). People often see a psychiatrist once monthly or less often.

    • Your MD can recommend you a psychiatrist or psychologist.

    • You can find one yourself by visiting the website for your insurer.

      • If you are in Yale Health, see this page.

    • You can also find psychologists, and details of their specialties, on websites like the listing in Psychology Today.

• Fatigue is a major factor affecting cognition. Try to set a regular sleep/wake routine and stick to it, especially during the working week (i.e. Sun-Thu nights). The Centers for Disease Control provide specific guidelines on:

  • How much sleep you should be getting.

  • How to improve your sleep.

• Attention. Varying attention is highly likely to influence memory. Individuals with a past diagnosis of ADHD may consider re-trying stimulant medication for a period to see if this influences their memory in daily life.

• Environmental distractions:

  • People function best when there are few distractions in the environment. Try removing distracting items from a desk, or using earplugs in noisy environments.

  • Try to keep eye contact with others when they are speaking; this will increase the chance that you follow what is said.

  • Email and text messages can be extremely distracting. Develop the habit of checking these only at designated times (e.g., 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 5pm) if possible. If not possible, try setting a reminder to check these only at hourly intervals.

  • There is growing evidence that methods such as Mindfulness training, which could be thought of as a form of training in ignoring distraction, and regular meditation may help improve attention. You may try such programs to see if they are of benefit to you.

Principles for learning

To make certain you have the best chance of remembering information, you can work to improve your "encoding" of information when you encounter it.

1. Simplify the information you need to remember. In addition to getting rid of distractions and working on focusing, you can try to summarize key points at the end of a conversation (e.g., “so just to confirm, …”). This recall will help make sure you remember what you have heard. Similarly, when reading, you can summarize material in the margins of the page in 1-2 dot points. Review these at the end of the chapter or section you are reading.

2. Remember one thing at a time. If you are being given too much information, ask others just to give you the key point or points.

3. Make sure you have understood. Build this into the two points above by checking the main point with the other person at the end of a conversation. Confirm with them, "so the main thing you are saying is that..."

4. Link to things you already know, that are successfully in your memory, if possible. If you have a general “model” for information you have to remember it will make it easier to learn new information. For example, while this can be applied in many ways, if you are working in business and know you often have to remember details a company together (e.g., (i) the person you interact with and (ii) its share price) use this pairing as a general model for learning and make sure you have these key points after reading or hearing about an organization.

5. Avoid trial-and-error learning. Trial and error learning is when you let yourself recall the wrong thing when you are trying to learn something. For example, looking at a word then trying to recall the meaning spontaneously. Research has shown that when you do this, you are likely to learn the incorrect errors that you make while trying to learn. In this example you could ensure that you review the word with the correct definition while learning, until you get it correct, and only after this test yourself without the correct definition at hand.

6. Ensure you actively engage and process when trying to learn the material. We know that if you process information more deeply, for instance, by thinking about the implications of what someone has said or how it relates to you, you will be more likely to remember it.

7. Rehearse important information a number of times after you learn it. For instance, review the most important things you have to remember after each meal, or at the end of the day.

8. “Distributed practice” is better than massed practice. That is, if you have to learn something revise it a number of times with a break in between each time you do. Reciting it intensively, once, is not the way to do it. Research also suggests that “Spaced retrieval” is also better – i.e., if you gradually lengthen the delay until when you must recall something. So after an important meeting you could summarize the 3 key points; check these an hour later over lunch; 3 hours later at lunch; then the following morning on the train.

Specific strategies

• Mnemonics – take the first letter of a series of key words for an important point, and learn these. For instance, to learn the colors of the rainbow (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet) you can take the first letters–ROYGBIV–and learn the sentence “Run Off You Boys, Girls In View”. You can later recall this sentence and work back to the colors.

• Embedding information in a story or rhyme also helps improve your memory.

• Visual imagery can be extremely helpful. For instance, to remember your doctor's name is Dr. Benjamin, you may rename him “Dr. BanjoMan”, and imagine him playing a Banjo. To recall that a specific company is headed by a certain CEO and sells three main types of products you could imagine that CEO standing on a street corner selling these.