How to build your working memory

Working memory is a part of the cognitive system of the brain, which has a limited capacity and can hold any information for a short time. Also called the short term memory, it is essential for day to day behavior and decision making.

From recalling phone numbers to route to homes or other places, classroom directions, etc. working memory is crucial to our everyday lives. 

Some people have a weak working memory and thus are not able to recall small things from even some time back. People should try and work on improving their working memory. Today as everything is available to us, people are not considering remembering anything. In earlier times, we used to remember the date of births, phone numbers, and whatnot. Now, as everything is available to us with just a click, we are not considering remembering anything. All the relevant information is saved on the phone. In reality, advanced technology has made us and our minds very lazy.

A good working memory, the capacity to retain and manipulate information in our mind, ensures greater ease with higher-order thinking skills such as planning, problem-solving, and reasoning.

Let us find some of the ways through which we can improve our working memory.

PLAY WITH ORDER

Sometimes it’s fun in reversing the order, plus it gives our mind an impulse to think and be able to remember it.

• Practice saying your multiplication tables backward
• Reverse an acronym and try to memorize it

CHUNK AND SCAFFOLD

You can improve at anything when you try to do it many times, try to work with your mind for a while. Memorize things and then try to reproduce it.

• Memorize phone numbers in chunks.
• Learn one line of poetry a day, scaffold up to stanzas, and then whole poems.

IMAGINARY JOURNEY

You can memorize better when you try to visualize things. Even when we used to remember something for exams, we used to practice the idea of connecting the topics with some exciting visuals.

• Imagine each piece of information as a pit stop on a long journey.
• Visualize steps as scenes in a tutorial or movies.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Want to achieve success in anything? Then the primary method is to plan your routine and later try to follow it. Some people break down in the middle path and thus are not able to achieve anything worth mentioning.

• Get into a routine; the more frequently you practice something, the easier it will get.
• Create checklists for yourself to reinforce day-to-day memory

USE SOME TOOLS

While the problem of not remembering things is some or the other way created by the advent of technology. The same technique can help us to improve it. Nowadays everything is available over the internet. You can surf sites regarding this, or you can download apps that can give you solutions and as well as some assistance in improving your working memory.

• Apps such as; Awesome Note and Audio Note and many other apps available in the play store can help you create interactive notes with recording, visuals, and color coding, to reinforce different parts of your brain.