Dear class,

I believe some of you might have already heard of Tony Buzan, the man who is most commonly associated with the use of mind maps. However, what’s not really known about him is the fact that besides the renowned “mind map” technique, Tony Buzan has also introduced to us other methods of recall that is invaluable to us. I remember reading one of his books and was interested in a technique that improves our recalling abilities. I will like to call this technique the “movie” technique since it employs the use of mental moving images.

Before I discuss this technique, I will like you to have an awareness that almost all of us think visually and not linguistically. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s consider a simple example. Look at the following scenarios and think of your own experiences:

• Celebrating your birthday parties
• One of the more memorable days in your secondary school
• One memorable outing that you have with friends

Now, what comes to your mind first? Is it images or text (as in words and sentences)? I am quite sure that it’s images. It is rarely that someone recalls any incident with words in his/her mind like this: “I see many friends in my house and my mum comes out of the kitchen holding the birthday cake…” In this instance, what someone sees is almost always a flashback of the entire scene happening simultaneously in images and not linearly in words (as what we usually do when we write an article or read a book).

Knowing that our minds think and recall using images rather than words, you can put this to good use in your presentations by stringing the points that you wish to present together and turning this into a movie. Hence, I call this the “movie” technique. This is most helpful to those who present using scripts but on the whole, it is useful to all of you. However, as most of you are using presentation slides, you will not find this technique helpful as you are able to read the points from the slides. Still, I will like you to learn this technique in the event that you have to present without any slides in the workplace.

So, how do you use this “movie” technique?

Say, you have several points to present for a particular presentation, as follows:

• Respect
• Curiosity
• Understanding

Now, try to visualise a scenario for each word. For instance, you can imagine a boy facing an old lady and speaking gently to her (indicating respect). Subsequently, he notices that the old lady is holding a plastic bag in one of her hands. He points at it and asks her about the bag’s content (indicating curiosity). When the old lady chooses not to answer his question, the boy merely nods his head and stop questioning her (indicating understanding).

You can always use a different story and you can always craft a story that is in a different order (such as highlighting ”curious” first, then “respect” and then “understanding”). When it comes to this technique, flexibility and creativity is key. Try practicing this technique to remember the points in the order that you want and before you know it, I believe that you will remember the points in the order that you want. From here, you merely have to elaborate on your points and provide examples accordingly.

You can even use this technique when you need to buy a list of items. Just visualise a story linking all the items that you wish to purchase and you won’t even need to bring a shopping list. Try it and see.

Happy practising!

During our course of studies, we have learnt many things. While it is always good to be knowledgeable, not all the things that we came across are relevant to us in our lives. And what’s interesting is that we usually forget what we have learnt once we lose touch of them. For example, how many of you are able to remember every significant date from your history classes (for those of you who have taken history lessons)? Or how many of you are still able to remember all the equations in your chemistry classes? 

So, what is important in our learning process is not to gather as much information as possible in our lifetime, because we usually do not use most of them. Try reading today’s newspaper from front to back and see if you can remember the details of every news articles that you have read ten weeks down the road. You probably can’t, and you won’t need to.  So, what is important in our learning process then? It’s actually to convert what you have read (that is, data) to something that you understand (that is, information) before finding ways to make use of the information to your advantage. That is, turning information into insights.

But how do you turn information into insights? This is what the bulk of this article is about.  Well, you can do this by making the effort to relate everything that you have learnt to your lives. Of course, when it comes to the media, there are some knowledge that is either irrelevant (such as the announcement by the media on an upcoming conference for engineers. Why do you want to know that if you are not an engineer and have no use of such information for anyone? ), redundant (such as an article on the convergence of digital technology. Well, you have known this already, yes?) or short-term (such as a publicity on a car exhibition tomorrow. Such information is useless since the occurrence is not long-term, and this is especially so when you have absolutely no interest in the event). 

It is important to note that the media caters to a large group of readers, which differs greatly in terms of demographic and psychographic profiles. Hence, not all the information that is provided by the media is related or even useful to us. We need to sift out the relevant content for ourselves, else it will be a matter of time before we suffer from information overload.

So relating the things that you have learnt to your lives is crucial, since these are often the things that you will remember for a long time. If you do not believe this, just think of the most memorable scene and/or character in a movie that you have watched. You will not be able to remember every single detail of it but rather, certain snippets will stand out. Examine these snippets and you will realise that the reason that you find these moments/person memorable is because you can relate to it in some way. Maybe it’s the humour, or maybe it’s the emotion(s) that you have experienced when watching the film that reflects how you feel in your real life, or maybe it’s the fact that you are able to relate to the characteristics of the lead character(s) in some ways that are similar to your own.

Therefore, it will be good if all of you are able to relate what you have learnt in class to your lives. Try to see if you are able to apply what you have learnt in the classroom to your own lives. This is because when to comes to acquiring knowledge, its application is equally if not more important.

Whatever you are able to relate to, you will remember it for a long time.