Braingle » ‘Mental Filing System’ Mentalrobics Article

As you are falling asleep, do you ever think about things that you need to do the next day, but you don’t want to turn on the light to write them down? The Phonetic Mnemonic System can help you remember these things in the morning. In fact, this system can be used any time that you don’t have a pen and paper handy.

To do this, simply associate the thing that you need to do (go to the bank) with a phonetic keyword for 1 (tie). Visualize the next thing that you need to do (pick up dinner) with a keyword for 2 (knee). When you wake up in the morning, you simply need to go through your keywords to remember the things that you need to do.

A variation on this method is to group your keywords by category. For example keywords 1-10 could be used for things related to work, keywords 11-20 could be for things related to home, and so on. This will help mentally organize your to-do list.

To reduce interference between days, you could use different keywords for each day of the week. Monday uses keywords 1-10, Tuesday 11-20, etc. Pick the method that works best for you.