The most significant way the book improved my memory is by changing how I conceptualize my memory. That is to say: the way to improve my memory is not to impro

The most significant way the book improved my memory is by changing how I conceptualize my memory. That is to say: the way to improve my memory is not to improve This-Thing-Called-Memory, but to improve This-Skill-Called-Creating-Memories. This means that I have -- and have to take -- an active and intentional part in really creating the memories I want to later recall. How do I create those memories? By adhering to some general principles, such as: Meaningfulness - Does this information make sense to you? If something doesn't make sense, you're very unlikely to remember it. Find a way to impose meaningfulness on inherently non-meaningful information and you will improve your "memory" because you improve your "memory creation skills". For example, memorizing the digits of Euler's number 2.718281828459045... is difficult because there is no meaning in the numbers. However, if you impose the following meaning on the digits memorization becomes much easier: 1828 is the birth year of Henrik Ibsen, my home country's most famous poet. And 45-90-45 are the values of a particular isosceles triangle where the two legs have length 1. So the way I remember Euler's number to myself is "two-point-seven-Ibsen-Ibsen-IsocelesTriangle". This is much easier to recall than the seemingly random digits themselves. There are other principles too, such as: Organization, Association, Visualization, Attention, Repetition, Feedback, Relaxation, Context, Interest, and Chunking. Each of which can help you in forming good memories. For example, the Association principles has to do with asking yourself "What does this remind me of?" when you want to remember new information. The more answers you can produce to that question, the better you will remember the new information. In addition to the basic and general principles above, there are more specific memorization techniques, such as: Chain Mnemonic, First Letter Mnemonic, Method of Loci, Peg Mnemonics, etc. The most basic of these techniques, the one I use a lot, is the Chain Mnemonic. It works by taking whatever you want to remember, divide it into pieces, then represent each piece by a concrete object, then associate each concrete object in the "chain" with the next object. How to picture objects and how to chain them together is elaborated upon in some detail in the book. It has mostly to do with: make it visually striking, bizarre, shocking, funny, etc. Engage as many of your senses as possible. What does the object sound like, smell like, feel like (dry? wet? sticky? smooth?), etc. I personally find that creating images like this is a skill you improve it the more you practice. Then you chain the images or objects together by having them interact in some way. One object falling on top of and crushing the other object. Or an object turning into another object in a striking way, etc. It's important to understand that the book only "works" if you turn the principles into habits. My memory is only "improved" when I apply the principles. When I don't apply the principles, there is no improvement.