Transcripts

Memory expert Harry Lorayne, author of the book Ageless Memory…

A Harvard business school once did a study and they said that most people in business spend at minimum a half hour a day searching for something they just had in their hands.

Harry Lorayne used to appear on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and remembered the names of all of the studio audience members, having heard their names only once. His secret is the reminder principle. For example…

You walk into your door, you've got a big flowerpot in your foyer, you toss the keys into the flowerpot, you go in, you have dinner, whatever. Later you want to go out for the paper, you need your keys and you search for a half hour for them. But look, when you walk into that door and if you put that key in the flower pot, you simply see a picture in your mind of a key growing in a flower pot - actually you're watering it so that it grows better. That's all do that and I guarantee you the next time you think of your key, you'll say, "Oh my God, it's growing in the flowerpot."

By creating that image in your head of the key growing in the flowerpot, you've created a reminder.

The point is rather than being absent-minded when you do a mundane action like putting your keys in the flowerpot in your foyer - your mind is absent. I teach people how to make it present-mindedness. I've just grabbed my mind by the scruff of the neck and said to it "Darn it! Pay attention!"

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.