How would you remember this number?

[Embassy]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

[momofkhm]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

 

They are the middle digits on the phone going up, then 9.

[ChristusG]

I'd make up a little tune and put it to song. Practice singing it over and over.

[eternalknot]

I have very odd ways of memorizing random numbers like that. My first inclination would be to visualize my sister (born in 85) and my SIL (who is 29 - and hopefully I'd just remember the number by the time her 30th birthday came around LOL!)

 

But I turned into a pictorial rhyme instead. If I say each digit quickly in French, it makes a chant easy enough to remember but weird enough to stick in my brain. I say it quickly enough that it sounds like gibberish - in any language - while picturing a window looking out onto a field of wheat (8), from the position of a Texan sink (5 - "sank") with dirty dishes (deux - DD) and my FIL with his hands on his hips growling "'Nuff!" (9) in his old-man grumpy accent.

 

I warned you it would be odd :lol:

[JMDRAD]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

 

What came to my mind was 8-5=3 5-2=3 3X3=9 I memorize a lot of #s this way. I also use patterns on the phone keypad.

[nmoira]

 

They are the middle digits on the phone going up, then 9.

This.

[Nakia]

I'm weird because I have always been able to remember random numbers. So for that, I would just repeat it a couple of times, and it would stick.

[dansamy]

I'm weird because I have always been able to remember random numbers. So for that, I would just repeat it a couple of times, and it would stick.

 

:iagree: It baffles me that people have to make up little memory joggers to remember short strings of information.

[ktgrok]

I could remember it as eighty-five twenty-nine.

[eternalknot]

:iagree: It baffles me that people have to make up little memory joggers to remember short strings of information.

 

I have horrible recall from short-term memory. I have to physically write everything down if I'm going to remember it. And even then, 75% of the time I'll need to see my notes to trigger the memory. I struggle even with typing things into my smartphone; I have to literally pencil-write everything down if there is any chance I'm to remember it in the short-term. Highly inconvenient, and I have scraps of notes surrounding me the way Pigpen does a dirt cloud!

 

:lol: I can tell you what outfit I was wearing on any given day of significance from about 1985 onward, but I'll get into the car and not remember what I went to the grocery store for -- even though I was mid-cooking and ran out for a single item to finish off the meal. It's a PITA LOL and I envy those of you with phenomenal recall!

[Perry]

I'm weird because I have always been able to remember random numbers. So for that, I would just repeat it a couple of times, and it would stick.

I always used to be able to do that too.

 

Just wait a few years.....:D

[smrtmama]

I wouldn't have to do anything. I have good short-term memory and I'd just repeat it mentally until it went into long-term.

[unsinkable]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

 

85 is the year my dad died, 29 the year of his birth

[unsinkable]

:iagree: It baffles me that people have to make up little memory joggers to remember short strings of information.

 

We all have differing skills and abilities.

[Guest janainaz]

I have odd ways of remembering things too. When I'm 85 I'll be wishing I was 29.

 

And that would honestly work for me.

[Impish]

Its weird, but would work for me.

8-3=5

5-3=2

2+3+3+1=9

 

Basically, set it up as 9 being the first and final number. to get 8, you subtract 1. Then add up all the subtracted numbers at the end.

 

I'm probably not explaining it quite right, but it would work for me.

[KidsHappen]

I would just memorize pairs - 82 59. Repeated redearch has shown that most human are only capable of memorizing up to 7 random items (numbers, colors, letters, names, etc. in short term memory. That is why license plate number are always 7 digits or less. Same with phone # minus the areas codes. If you know your area code, then you only have to memorize the number. If it is a person that you would call regularly in a different time zone you would memorize that time zone seperately and then memorize their number when given to you.

 

ETA: Ha. Apparently my short term memory is so far gone that I am not even capable of what most humans are. Obviously the number under discussion is 8529. Providing that I was actually memorizing the correctly number, I would still do it in pairs, 85 - 29.

Edited August 25, 2010 by KidsHappen

[dirty ethel rackham]

I would say that I was class of '85 in college and my parents were born in 1929. I use clues like this, plus I repeat it several times with a sing-song-like cadence that helps me remember.

[Sumiller]

It depends on how it is used. I am a very visual person so if I was typing it into a keypad I would memorize the shape that the number made on the keypad. In this case the numbers start at the top middle and go straight down and then loop back up to the next column of numbers. Not too tough.

 

:iagree:

 

I'm very visual too. I couldn't tell you what my pin # is at the atm because I've memorized it only as the pattern on the keypad as I type the numbers. Once I had the pattern down, I tossed the paper with the numbers on it. It works for me. I've gone months without going to the atm and I've never forgotten my pin # . . . this is incredible because if you ask my dear family they will tell you that I have a lousy memory for those kinds of little details. :D

 

Oh, this is also how I remember friends and family phone numbers.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Sumiller
spell check.

[Embassy]

Wow, it sure is interesting to read how different learning styles learned the same information.

 

For me, I did 8-3= 5 5-3=2 3x3=9.

 

I realize some people don't need any sort of strategy, but I'm not one of them.

[Teachin'Mine]

I'd remember it as August 5, 1929. One of the last days of the roaring 20's. :)

[SproutMamaK]

I'd start a thread on WTM about it so that I could reference back here for the number when I needed it. You? ;)

[MamaT]

I would remember it as '85 and that I was pregnant with oldest, and my age 29, the year I was pregnant with my third son.

[WishboneDawn]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529[/QUOTe]

 

8 and 9 and in sequence. 5+2 = 7 which makes it 7,8,9.

 

I know, I know. Ridiculously complicated and people generally just stare at me when I try to explain but If I look for relations and patterns, even (or rather, especially) when I use some arithmetic then it stays in my head forever.

 

I'll know that number months from now. :D

 

EDIT: I read the other responses and realize I'm not so weird afterall. :) I do have another method I should mention. I would visualize the numbers being slowly burned or carved into something so I could recall the "picture" of that later.

Edited August 24, 2010 by WishboneDawn

[LizzyBee]

85 is the year I moved to Okinawa and age 29 is a year that lots of people dread the next birthday.

[swellmomma]

I could remember it as eighty-five twenty-nine.

 

That's how I would do it too

[NanceXToo]

I could remember it as eighty-five twenty-nine.

 

Me, too. Then it would only really be two numbers. I'd repeat them to myself several times and I'm sure it would just "stick."

[Danestress]

If you had to memorize a number and you couldn't write it down, how would you go about putting it in your long term memory?

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

 

it would be very expensive to have to fund a 529 for 8 kids.

[Nakia]

I always used to be able to do that too.

 

Just wait a few years.....:D

 

:lol:

[scrappyhappymama]

They are the middle digits on the phone going up, then 9.

 

:iagree: I use my mental keypad often to memorize numbers.

 

What came to my mind was 8-5=3 5-2=3 3X3=9

 

Several folks have posted this or some variation. This would not work for me AT.ALL. I'd remember that there was supposed to be some computation, but not remember where it started or how they were related.

 

I find it fascinating the different ways our minds work.

[Rhea]

This is what I did for my last pin: "An 85 yo and a 29 yo walked into a bar..."

 

That's it, no punch line. It worked for me right away, I think because it was silly.

 

When my husband wanted to know my pin I told him "An 85 yo and a 29 yo walked into a bar." He laughed and I thought that was the end of it. But he made me laugh when he called me one day with, "I know they walk into a bar, but how old are they?" So it didn't work for him at all.

[VaKim]

85 is a year after I graduated. 29 is how old I was a year after my first dd was born.

[cathmom]

LOL - this reminds me of when I was in Germany. I desperately needed more money from the ATM, but in Germany, they don't have letters with the numbers on the keypad!!! I only knew my PIN as a word, not a number. You should have seen the crazy American lady standing there saying the alphabet, trying to figure out her PIN!

 

As for remembering a number like that, I'd either just remember it or figure out something personal to me that it related to.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

I'd remember it as 85-29. I'd just repeat 85-29 to myself a few times. When I needed to recall it, I'd remember that it started with my birth year (85) and that would jog the rest of it.

[kalanamak]

 

The number is only 4 digits longs - 8529

 

I remember numbers by the pattern on a touch tone phone: from the bottom straight up the center, then right lower corner.

 

Or 8-3 makes 5, minus 3 makes two, jump back to nine, if I would use the number at a keyboard and I have that across the top.

 

Or by hints: "Sister born in '85, Gramps born in 29" Or "year I moved to X, year of the stock market crash."

 

I have dozens of 4 digit extensions in my head from work, and the first one, pattern, does the best, for me.

[dansamy]

We all have differing skills and abilities.

 

Umm... I'm aware of that. Just like my sister cannot fathom why organizational skills do not come naturally to me, I have difficulty understanding that my memory skills are enviable to others. I'm well aware that there are things that are very difficult for me that are easy for others.

[jewellsmommy]

I could remember it as eighty-five twenty-nine.

 

:iagree: In fact it will probably be stuck in my head now. In a few days I'll be annoyed that I remember the numbers but not remember what they are for and it will drive me crazy!

[scrappyhappymama]

:iagree: It baffles me that people have to make up little memory joggers to remember short strings of information.

 

We all have differing skills and abilities.

 

Umm... I'm aware of that. Just like my sister cannot fathom why organizational skills do not come naturally to me, I have difficulty understanding that my memory skills are enviable to others. I'm well aware that there are things that are very difficult for me that are easy for others.

 

But, your original comment was not that you had difficulty understanding that your "memory skills are enviable to others." It was that you were baffled that others had to "make up little memory joggers to remember short strings of information." If you were already so very aware of the fact that folks have differing skills and abilities, then you wouldn't be baffled by it then, now would you?

 

Perhaps you didn't mean it so, but your comment did come across a bit condescending in the context of this discussion, and I think the respondent's comment gently pointed this out.

[Barb_]

I always used to be able to do that too.

 

Just wait a few years.....:D

 

:iagree: Sorta. I can still do this with numbers. Names and nouns elude me now, however. I wonder what that means.:glare:

[ChrisB]

I'm weird because I have always been able to remember random numbers. So for that, I would just repeat it a couple of times, and it would stick.

:iagree:If not this, then I will do this...

They are the middle digits on the phone going up, then 9.

[LisaMarie6]

:iagree: In fact it will probably be stuck in my head now. In a few days I'll be annoyed that I remember the numbers but not remember what they are for and it will drive me crazy!

 

LOL, I agree. I now have the numbers 85 29 stuck in my brain. In a few days I will be wondering if they are a forgotten password or pin number.