How to Remember: Some Basic Principles How do you communicate something you've forgotten? You can't! Now's the time to fit memory into the communication picture. Don't be content with a 10 percent level of remembering. Tap into the following three basic laws and triple that figure. After all, improved memory means improved communication. THE PREREQUISITES Most of us, psychologists say, don't use more than 10 percent of our native ability to remember. That's comparable to running a car on one or two cylinders and just poking along. Why don't we use more of our inherent memory power? There are several answers. First, because we haven't been trained to. Nowhere in our schooling were we taught how to use our powers of memory. And second, because we often just don't care. And that leads me to the three things that I feel are essential to a more powerful memory. First, you must have a burning desire to improve your memory. You must care about it. Most people struggle along with poor memories, enduring endless frustrations and embarrassments in their daily lives, because they just don't want to be bothered remembering the constant barrage of names, numbers, facts, and information. What you have to do is remind yourself of the many benefits of a good memory: the increased confidence I promised you, the popularity and the peace of mind. Aren't those three alone enough to stir a desire in you to improve? The second prerequisite is the ability to concentrate. You will be effective in remembering to the degree that you are enough to concentrate. A short period of intense concentration will often enable you to accomplish more than years of dreaming. The third prerequisite was revealed to me by former Postmaster-General James Farley of New York City. Mr. Farley was cited by associates for having the most remarkable memory in this century. I asked him his secret. 'There's no real secret,' he said. 'You simply must love people. If you do, you won't have any trouble remembering their names, and a lot more about them than that.' And that's the third essential: You must care about people. It wasn't long after I talked to Mr. Farley that I came across an interesting line from Alexander Pope. 'How vast a memory has love,' he wrote. Certainly a deeper interest in people, and in your work as well, should make your desire to remember and your concentration much easier. THE BASIC LAWS Visualize. Now you're ready to learn the basic techniques for developing your memory. The first essential is to visualize. Picture what you want to remember. Since 85 percent of all you learn and remember in life reaches you through your eyes, it is absolutely vital that you visualize the things you want to recall later. To do that, you must above all become aware. And awareness involves becoming both a keen observer and an active listener. You have to see clearly and hear accurately in order to picture vividly what you want to remember. Too many people go through life only partly awake, only partly aware. They don't forget names they never hear them clearly in the first place. That art of retention is the art of attention. Become curious, observant, and sensitive to everything around you. See the roof detail on that old building. Notice the difference between the tree greens of April and of August. Hear the difference between the sirens of an ambulance, a fire track, a police car. Sharpen your senses of sight and hearing -- they're the most important. Together, those two senses account for 95 percent of our memory power. Two ancient sayings highlight the importance of visualizing. 'One time seeing is worth a thousand times hearing.' And 'A picture is worth ten thousand words.' Repeat. If school didn't bother to teach us formal memory work, it did teach us the need for repeating. We were taugh