Linking

Linking is also referred to as chaining.

This is one of the fundamental tools for memorizing information. With this technique medical students and physicians will be able to remember the natural history of diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. Or, if you are studying American history you can use it to recall, for example, the factors leading up to the Revolutionary War or the Civil War.

It is like a children’s game where you let your imagination run wild.  The more unusual and bizarre the images, the better!  However, imagination is not child’s play.  Albert Einstein wrote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” 

The principle of linking is to make a mental picture of the first item you wish to remember, then create a mental picture of the second item, and link them together in such an exaggerated way that the image is unnatural and would not occur in nature.  You can continue by adding a third image and linking it to the second and so forth.

Let’s demonstrate how this works by pretending that we have multiple errands to do.

Here is our task list:

• Mail a letter
• Pick up dry cleaning
• Take a book back to library
• Pick up a Harry Potter video
• Pay car license
• Pick up shoes that have been repaired
• Buy cat litter
• Buy garbage bags
• Buy cereal
• Pick up prescription

We will now going convert each of these tasks into a mental image and link each to the mental image of the next task. This is to be repeated until the entire list has been converted into mental images.

However there are several rules that MUST be followed. The images must be:

Exaggerated.

Multiple — you must "see" millions of the objects

Bigger than life — something that would not happen in real life.

Unusual and bizarre.

Illogical, absurd, impossible and not real in some ridiculous way.

In vivid color.

Use all of the senses - smell, pain, taste, hearing and touch.

MUST HAVE ACTION this is the glue that creates a lasting image.

Involve yourself where appropriate and use every one of your senses..

You must see these images vividly in your mind's eye.

Let’s start! 

Here are our suggestions. Create these mental images with us:
Make a mental picture of an ENORMOUS envelope with a giant postage stamp that is bigger than the envelope! This envelope is so big that you can hardly put your arm around it. The stamp has a picture of the sun that is so bright that it hurts your eyes to look at it. 

Once you have this image see the dry cleaning stuffed into this giant envelope. It is stuffed in so tight that some of the dry cleaning is falling out of the envelope and we are annoyed that our clothing is getting creases.

Make sure that you have these images firmly in your mind’s eye before proceeding.

Now we have to link the dry cleaning to the library without breaking the chain that we are constructing. Picture yourself walking into a library full of millions of … NO, NOT BOOKS, but racks upon racks of hanging dry cleaning.

Once you have this image move onto the next item, which is the Harry Potter video, and link it to a library. You could see the students playing quidditch in a library, knocking over the racks of books. 

So far you should be able to look back and "see" the envelope, the dry cleaning, the library and Harry Potter.

Let's move on to the next item, which is the car license sticker. Perhaps you can "see" Harry Potter using his wand to put the license onto your windshield, but in doing so the glass is shattered to smithereens.

Next, link shoes to the car license. Perhaps you can visualize the windshield glass cutting into your shoes. Hopefully you will feel the pain as the glass cuts through the leather and cuts your foot.

You have been given some ideas for possible mental images. Now it’s time to develop your own images combining shoes to cat, cat to garbage bags, garbage bags to cereal, and finally cereal to prescription. Be careful not to break this mental chain.

Now take a piece of paper and write down these 10 tasks.

The images that YOU create are much more powerful than any produced by someone else.  Mental images can be described as good, better or best. Any image you create is good, but the best ones are those that have all the attributes given above, especially ACTION. Do not get disheartened if you have difficulty developing the images or if it takes you a while to come up with vivid images. The more you practice at creating images, the better they will be. Eventually you will be developing them literally in microseconds!

Now sit back and mentally go over what you have to do. If you reach a point where you cannot recall the next item it means that you did not develop a strong, lasting association and image.  Go back and create a stronger image and association.  The more you practice, the easier it will be to develop the images.

As an additional exercise, start at the end (the prescription) and work your way through to the beginning. Are you impressed that the system works? 

What if you cannot remember the first item on the list? Not to worry. If you can remember any item on the list, work your way backwards until you reach the beginning! Then work your way through to the end.

The importance of practicing cannot be overemphasized.

The technique of linking can also be used to remember a list of objects.

To help you reinforce this technique we have prepared a list of 10 items that you can use for practice.

If you would like to do an exercise with a list of 20 items click here.

In the next section (Pegging), you will be introduced to another method of remembering a list of items or tasks.

Proceed to the next section - Pegging