Memorise this: how to remember everything, just like Sherlock

Do you marvel at Derren Brown? Do you aspire to be Sherlock and live in a Mind Palace of infinite recall? Or can you just never find your glasses?

A recent study analysed the brains of 23 memory champions to try to unlock the secret of their impressive powers of recall. As it turns out, their superior ability to remember hundreds of facts and figures is not due to enhanced cognitive power or kryptonite-powered anatomy, but rather learnt through specific strategies.

To prove it, the researchers worked with people who had average memory-recall abilities, giving them a set of tasks to improve their skills. After six weeks of training, their brains began to work in a similar way to that of the memory champions, with the results lasting for a further four months.

Consequently, the researchers conclude that superior memory skills are associated with intra-neuron connectivity, rather than genetic ability. Once you establish a specific set of techniques, you can apply them a range of situations, boosting your memory skills on a day-to-day basis. 

Whether you aspire to reel off each stop on the local train, or spout the names of every ruler of England and their spouses, or just want to remember where you left your wallet and not spend precious minutes every day searching for it, there are plenty of well known (and, surprisingly simple) techniques that can help boost your memory power. 

You may not make it to the World Memory Championships (yes, that's a real thing), but you might just be able to remember your phone charger once in a while.

1. Loci – or Sherlock's Mind Palace

Also known as the "mind palace", this ancient technique (referenced by Cicero and Quintilian) was applied during the study to help the average-brained improve their powers of recall. It involves imagining a familiar environment, and associating items within that environment with the data to be remembered, such as numbers or names. When called upon to recall the information, you "walk through" the environment in your mind, and the site of each object should trigger the memory of the associated number. The more outlandish and striking the images, the more likely you are to remember them.

Memory champion Joshua Foer broke records in 2006 by using this method to memorise an entire pack of cards in under two minutes.  

2. Repeated testing

Simple but effective – the more you test yourself on information, the better you remember it. A 2006 study on the best methods for language learning showed that, rather than reading and re-reading vocabulary lists and then doing a test at the end, it's more effective in the long term to study them once, and then test yourself numerous times. 

This could be a useful way of trying to remember the dates of your friends' birthdays without logging on to Facebook. Write them all down, study them thoroughly, then test yourself. Mark your answers, then repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Then turn on that Facebook setting that reminds you when their birthdays are, just in case...

3. Elaborative processing

Say you like to make detailed shopping lists but have a tendency to leave it at home. How can you be expected to remember everything on it? A useful technique is known as elaborative processing – when you associate new information with previously stored information.

Essentially, rather than seeing the items on your list as individual objects, studies have shown that associating them with a specific context uses a more complex level of mental processing, resulting in better recall.

So, for example, rather than just trying to remember eggs, you think about the fact that you need eggs because you ran out while making that excellent omelette two days ago. Or maybe you need tissues because your partner has just had a horrific cold and you think you're coming down with one too. By placing each item in a context with which you are already familiar, you are more likely to be able to remember them when needed. 

The technique could also be applied to line-learning or obscure fact-spouting. Say you want to remember that the championships for the best locomotive was the The Rainhill Trials in 1829. You're more likely to be able to remember it if you also think about the fact that the winner, The Rocket, was designed by George Stephenson and was the model for future British steam trains, which changed the face of Britain. 

4. Acronymns

An oldie but a goodie. Using acronyms to remember information is taught in schools because it really helps. Remember MRS NERG? Movement, respiration, sensitivity, nutrition, excretion, reproduction, growth – the seven processes that determine a living organism. A study involving psychology students showed that those who used acronyms as learning mechanisms did significantly better than their peers when it came to recalling information in exams. 

 Using acronyms can be helpful outside the classroom, too. Let's say you need to remember to pick up your neighbour's dog, Goldie, this evening. Just think PUG - Pick Up Goldie. 

5. Rhymes

How many days are there in September? Chances are you'll remember that there are 30, because of the much used rhyme "30 days hath September, April, June and November". The saying works because of its use of rhyme – we remember the words because our brains store them through a process called 'acoustic encoding': essentially remembering through hearing. Rhyming words are easier for our brains to encode, and are therefore easier to remember.

Studies have also pointed out that rhyming is useful for memory because it means words are automatically restricted – if you know you have to remember something that ends in "ember", you can automatically discount a great quantity of vocabulary, allowing you to focus on all the rhyming words. If you struggle to remember names, try to think of a suitable word that rhymes with it that could trigger your memory. So "Claire has short hair" or "Bill can't sit still".

If you want to use rhyme to remember a list of ten objects, you can also use the number rhyming technique. First, think of an image that rhymes with each number up to ten (eg. one/sun, two/shoe). Then assign each of your objects with a number. Visualise a situation involving the object and the number image. So if your second item is a wardrobe, imagine a pair of shoes falling out of the wardrobe. This should allow you to remember both the object and its place in the list.

As with the memory palace, the more unusual and wacky the image, the more likely you are to remember it. 

6. Music

Does it frustrate you that you can remember the lyrics to 100 songs, but you can't remember the names of your partner's siblings? Studies have shown that, when learning a language, singing words can help you remember vocabularly and certain phrases more effectively than merely speaking them.

Medical students and doctors, who need to learn and restore huge quantities of information, are known for using music as a memory technique. In 2012 a British junior doctor created a music video of himself singing about the treatment of asthma, following the hospital's disappointing performance in a survey. The video went viral among staff, and two months later another survey showed that that staff performance had markedly improved.

Memorising information through song boosts the level of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical used for the encoding of new information. So pick a song you know well, and replace the lyrics with the names or words you need to remember. The funnier and sillier it is, the better.    

7. Common sense

Beyond mental gymnastics, there are a few practical habits that can help with your general forgetfulness. If you're prone to losing things like keys, get into the habit of keeping them in the same place, such as a table in the hallway. Or you could invest in a swanky key hook by the front door. There's also the tried and tested method of just keeping important items on your person – put your oyster card in your inner coat pocket, so you never have to remember to take it out. 

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?