Seems I actually learned something worthwhile…

in high school!

Usually, when I think back on those years, I can’t for the life of me come up with one thing I learned in high school that would count as “worthwhile”–that is, something I’d use in day-to-day life–at least, not something that I wouldn’t have learned somewhere else along the way anyway.

But today, I found myself using mnemonics (mental tricks to help remember things). And when I thought about it, I realized I had indeed picked up the concept during a high school psych class! While I have indeed come across that very info elsewhere, it was the HS that had the best explanation.

So what’s the trick?

The trick of mnemonics is to associate what you’re trying to remember, with something ELSE that’ll stick in your memory better.

Today I needed to remember the weights of two boxes, one that’s 7lb 11oz, and one that’s 5lb and 6oz. Perfectly random stuff, you would think, no? Well, by being able to associate them with other things which are more memorable to me, I am still aware of their weights hours later.

It goes like this:
7lb 11oz. That’s 7-11. There’s a song that includes the line, “7 come 11, and she could be mine.” So, I turned that box into 7 Come 11.

The local PBS station here is Channel 56. So, the 5lb 6oz box became “Channel 56″ and all I have to remember is to seperate the digits and that’s the weight.

Associations like that make seemingly random things easy to remember. I actually remember an association from about 10 years ago that I made this way! “Heinz 57.” That meant to enter the code “57″ into the charge machine at the store I was w*rking at then.

Unfortunately, since I knew the reason for the entry at the time, I didn’t do a mnemonic to remind me just what on Earth it was that the entry of the number 57 did…