Anchor thoughts and ideas, how to

“We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want” – Edward Bolles

It’s natural to forget things. The process of forgetting is spontaneous and consists in our incapacity to recall memories from the memory storage. Forgetting is subject to a delicately balanced optimization that ensures relevant memories are recalled.

Whether drawing a mental blank on a new A.T.M. password, a favorite recipe or an old boyfriend, people have ample opportunity every day to curse their own forgetfulness.

Now let’s talk about a less-known method that you can use for remembering things.

Anchoring

“Anchoring” in the sense of connecting and holding information, much like a boat uses an anchor to keep a certain position.

By anchoring, you code information from the short term memory into the long term memory, using your senses. This means connecting the information to something relevant to you and your processing preferences – visual, auditory, kinesthetic. There are several types of anchors that can be identified, as following.

Visual anchors

Using colour or images, you can visually anchor ideas.

Anchoring ideas visually - using bright colours or images - can be a great way to store and remember information. For example, picture a football field and two football teams. Imagine that the players have important years printed on the team jumpers (this will help you remember important dates). You could even anchor a particular year by having the referee waving a bright orange flag on it with the year in black.

The more bizarre the association or image, the easier it is to remember.

Sound anchors

You can anchor ideas or memories using sounds (eg. songs, melodies, intonations, rhythms, etc). Something that you could use right away: choose your favorite song and change its words to fit the information you need to remember. To anchor the information deep within your mind, hum the tune a few times.

Activity anchors

Anchoring also works with physical actions. For example, every time you turn on your radio, or open your front door, you can remember the steps in a process or a list of words by associating them with that action.

Smell anchors

Smell is one of the strongest memory senses we have as humans. Aromatherapy doesn’t only fill your house with heavenly scents, it can also help you remember details of a topic. You could also use aromatherapy when you’re working on different subjects to switch between different mindstates.

You can create connections between scents and emotions or events.

Pathway anchors

You can also anchor information to a familiar route.You can build connections or imagine a story based on your regular pathways.

For example, if you have a shopping list for tomatoes, donuts, chocolate, bananas and an umbrella, then you can imagine your usual journey to the local shops as something like this

• You open the door and you find a big squashed tomato at the door.
• You get in your car and you see a huge donut in place of the tyres.
• You get to the shopping centre and step into mud, and imagine melted chocolate.
• Imagine as you enter you see someone slip on a banana.
• And as this happens it’s pouring with rain, so you remember the umbrella.

Association and analogy anchors

You should use analogies to form connections between form and content everytime it’s possible. It’s a very powerful method that you can use to remember things.

Body anchors

By far, one of the most powerful anchors for information is your body. You can anchor emotions, moods, states of mind, information, ideas, everything.

When I first read about information anchoring a few years back, I naturally decided to try it and see if it really works. So I thought about me coming home from school that day and anchored the thought to my left arm wrist.

4 years have passed since then and I still remember the anchored thought down do the smallest detail.

You are now probably wondering how to anchor information to your body. Well, the process is really simple.

To anchor an idea, you need to focus on it and squeeze the part of your body that you want to anchor it to. Real-life example: last night, while trying to fall asleep, the idea to write about information anchors came into my mind; I was too sleepy and lazy to get out of bed and write it down, so I anchored it to a spot on my right arm. It’s easy to see that the anchoring process worked.

You could also use your body to anchor emotions or feelings. It’s the same process as for anchoring ideas, but the anchoring must take place while you live the feeling or emotion that you want to anchor. You could anchor feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and recall them when you’re feeling blue.

I’ve used all these methods and got great results out of them.

If you know more about this subject, please share the information with us in the comments!