Many of us are poor listeners. We forget 75% of what we do hear within two months. We forget between a third and a half of what we hear within 8 hours. If someone is not observant, a poor listener, easily distracted, fails to concentrate or lacks interest, he or she has remembers even less. And this is exacerbated by the digital age of speed where everything seems to be happening at once, and where people seem to take pride in the self-defeating behavior of multitasking.
Smartphones and iPhones have apps for almost everything. We are reminded to turn off the stove, when to leave for an appointment and where we left the car. Memorization seems to be a dying skill; because everything is available at the click of a mouse or a tap of an icon. Unfortunately, as our natural memory declines, we may even forget where we left our smartphone! The problem with our brain, and with memory and other cognitive skills, is that if we don’t use them we lose we lose them.
In this brief book Harold Taylor, author of Managing your memory (1988), explains not only how to keep your memory skills intact through lifestyle changes and attitude, but how to increase your powers of memory and recall by using your brain’s natural ability to visualize and associate.
