Synthesize to Help Improve Your Memory

The truth is, people with the best memories are typically not smarter than anyone else. They just have an uncanny ability to synthesize.

February 19, 2020

“The problem of education is to make the pupil see the wood by means of the trees.” — Alfred North Whitehead, British Mathematician and Philosopher

One of the hardest jobs to acquire in London is that of a Black Cab driver — all of whom must pass a grueling street test called “The Knowledge.” The city’s street system is not a grid, nor is it otherwise logically connected, so prospective cabbies must intricately study every block. They’re not allowed to have Waze or GPS in their cars. When they take the examination, which only 30 percent complete and many take three years to pass, they are given an obscure landmark as the pick-up point, then a random restaurant as the drop-off. Then, from memory, they must verbally give the shortest routes.

Today, see if you can remember every street name and turn before you even start your car on the way to work. You know how to get there, but do you know the names of the streets? Probably not.

The truth is, people with the best memories are typically not smarter than anyone else. They just have an uncanny ability to synthesize, to put two things together to remember one. Doing this can literally transform our lives.

Here are 3 crucial tips:

  1. Do not be preoccupied with any outside distractions. If you want to improve your memory, you must quickly tune out outside noise when learning. You must focus only on the task at hand and get rid of other meaningless information that might be taking up space in your mind.

  2. Quickly recognize what is pivotal to remember. We always remember the name of our new boss; yet, we forget the names of our new colleagues. Why? We place more importance on one than the other. You have to make everything relevant.

  3. Work to strengthen your memory bank. We lose memory over time — so we must work harder to synthesize as we age. Try thinking in twos, not ones.

We are not going to gain a steel-trap memory overnight. But we can start taking steps each day to improve it ever so slightly. We don’t have to be able to pass “The Knowledge,” but we should probably be able to remember the name of the person we were introduced to 30 seconds ago.

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