Episode 40 Memory Strategies Improve Executive Functioning

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Exploring Metacognition and Executive Functioning

Memory strategies and executive functioning

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Transcript:

Erica: Welcome to the personal brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran, and we're your hosts. Join us on an adventure to translate scientific jargon and brain research into simple metaphors and explanations for everyday life. We explore executive function and learning strategies that help turbocharge the mind.

Erica: Come learn to steer around the invisible barriers so that you can achieve your goals. This podcast is ideal for parents, educators, and learners of all ages. This podcast is brought to you by Goodsensorylearning.com, where you can find educational and occupational therapy lessons and remedial materials that bring delight to learning. Finally, you can find Dr. Warren's many courses at, Learningspecialistcourses.com. Come check out our newest course on developing executive functions and study strategies.

Darius: This podcast is sponsored by Dyslexiaproductivitycoaching Um.com. We give you a simple productivity system for your Apple devices that harnesses the creativity that comes with your Dyslexia.

Erica: So, Darius, what are we going to talk about today?

Darius: Well, last week we talked a lot about memory, and the conversation went towards memory. So I thought it would be good to have, memory strategies and how memory strategies affect executive function and improve your executive function. So let's talk about that.

Erica: Yeah, it's a great topic because they really work together beautifully. And I think that we've talked a lot about the different parts of executive functioning. We've got working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. And I think we're largely focusing on working memory for this episode. I think that working memory is the place I often reverse it, saying it's our memory working. And there are many pieces of working memory that integrate the different types of memory, like immediate memory, like short term memory, long term memory, episodic memory. So, for example, when we bring the sensory information into our mind, it goes through immediate memory, which is just a very momentary M memory, into short term memory, which is about seven minutes. And then when we are using our working memory, it goes into the kind of episodic memory, which is just the moment, the episode of the moment. And that's where we're actually able to work our memory and get information to be encoded. But in that place where our memory is working, it's also accessing the long term memory so that we can relate things to what we already know. And then it also helps us to encode the information because we're attaching it to something we already know. And of course, that's one of the best memory techniques, is to attach something new to something we already know. And the more we do that, we keep our I always think of it as a filing cabinet, our mental filing cabinet, well organized, because I know that I naturally have a pretty messy brain where things are kind of thrown in there, and sometimes I can access them and sometimes I can't. And the more I consciously try to organize and connect my thoughts, the easier it is for me to retrieve it because it's attached to that same idea. And then if I think about that idea, then everything kind of comes out together. So, working memory is just fascinating about really how it helps our memory work. And we've talked about the three parts of working memory that really help us to actually go through the act of memorizing, which we love alan Battley's model of the visual spatial sketch pad, the phonological loop, and then he actually brings in that episodic memory. But why don't you take us down a little trip of the visual spatial sketch pad and the phonological loop?

Darius: Well, I think often we rely very heavily on the phonological loop. Someone says something to you, and you hear a list of instructions or some words of a concept or whatever. But there's another aspect to our memory, which is the visual spatial aspect to our memory. And I think sometimes, especially in education, that's the poorer, cousin of the phonological loop, where you emphasize on words come first, and concentrating that phonological loop. Keep looping those words in your mind until you find a place that they're meant to connect to and fit. And really, that's what's happening with your memory is like, you're taking in information and you're finding where it fits, and you're trying to juggle it, or keep it in action in that loop of words until it gets put in the right place. Even short term memory or long term memory, one way of really enhancing that simple way is to really utilize that unused visual spatial sketch pack or underused visual spatial sketchpad.

Erica: Well, I'm going to step back and take us a little bit deeper into the phonological loop, because I love the phonological loop. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that it's really our inner voice. And it's not only our inner voice, but it's really our inner voices. Because I think the more we become conscious of our inner voice, the more we realize that we have multiple inner voices. I mean, I've known students that have many, many different inner voices, and they're different characters. It's kind of fascinating. But I think for me, it's more like a I've got my really together and really best self inner voice. And then I've also got this inner critic or this negative complaining, inner voice as well. And I think that we don't have to go down this inner voice path, but we can use that inner voice to aid our memory. So, it's in a way, it's like, maybe our tamed inner voice is a good way of thinking about it. We can tame our inner voice to serve as an incredible tool to aid memory. What are your thoughts about that?

Darius: Yeah, I think absolutely, I think it'd be useful to dive into some practical strategies with this, because now that you've laid down that framework and that landscape of how our memories are working. we've also looked in the last episode at how important working memory is to so many outcomes in our life. If we are capturing this information, coming into us, putting it in the right place, and ordering it in the right place, creatively, visually, verbally, then good things happen, stuff gets done. You remember things, you enjoy things even more. So let's go deeper into strategies on that because I know you've got lots of them. We've talked about mnemonics and Pegging and linking and all of that kind of method of locai. Just intentionally using some of these natural gifts we've got already, but really intentionally using them to clear our working memory and put it straight into the place it belongs. Because often, if you know something's important, you just keep juggling it in your brain because you're like, I don't want to lose this. I don't want to lose this. And if I drop it, it's lost. But if I put it down intentionally somewhere in my mind, file it or whatever, then it's not lost. And so there's this kind of tension sometimes. And I think there's a lot of people feel, completely overwhelmed in life in their day to day, often because their working memories are overworked at, capacity. They're just juggling so much in their head. They're like, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know how to get everything out my head. And your subconscious mind is just going, you can't let it go. You can't let it go. Don't drop that, don't drop that, don't drop that. And you're going, I can't drop this, I can't drop this. And you're like, well, put it down. Right down somewhere. Have you seen that video where the guy holds a glass of water and he goes, this isn't a very heavy glass of water, is it? And they go, no, it's not. But then he puts his arm out and he holds it and he says, it's still not very heavy. But after ten minutes, this is agony. And it's kind of the same with holding all these thoughts in your head, but if you keep holding it there, it just suddenly comes out and you don't know why you're so stressed out and anxious and, overwhelmed. And often it's as simple as taking some notes and writing the thoughts down and making it a do list, or putting it in Apple notes, or mapping it out or talking it through with someone. It's another way of memorizing it. Or there's also more intentional ways of intentionally saying, I'm going to remember that, and I'm going to use a memory strategy to remember that. So I don't need to write out, but I've got it in my memory.

Erica: Yeah, it makes me think of the twelve ways of processing that we've talked about in the past that those this is so funny because there's so many ways we can frame this discussion we could talk about memory, as in visual types of memory, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, sequential, simultaneous, verbal. You could even have the reflective ones. You have the direct experience, indirect experience, rhythmic, melodic, those twelve ways of processing. You can talk about it as in the phonological loop, like the tools of working memory, the phonological loop, the visual, I guess visualization and then spatialization. Or you could talk about and you and I discussed this, about breaking it down into inner versus outer, or inner meaning internal versus external techniques. But I do before we go down that path, I do want to just go a little bit deeper into what the visual spatial sketch pad is for, those that don't know what that is. So the visual part of the sketch pad is just your capacity to visualize and to create mental imagery. And then the spatial piece is your ability to spatialize. I was really excited when I found that that was actually a word, and it means your ability to imagine yourself moving or an object moving through space. So you could imagine a square, and you could imagine in your mind actually rotating that square, or imagine yourself going from one place to another place. You can imagine yourself. It's tricky to know. Which way do we organize the discussion because we can hit it in so many ways. So what do you think? I think going into these techniques is a great idea. And how should we organize the discussion?

Darius: Well, I've been toying around with this idea because I've been listening to you a lot through these conversations. Whenever we talk about memory, what happens is you tend to go towards your go to is internal memorization strategies. And my go to tends to be external memory strategies, like get it out your head, into your write it down, draw it out, put it into a map, take some notes, just get it out your head because there's not enough room in there to hold it. Now, you're often like, actually, they're great, but sometimes you actually need to memorize it and go through that process of remembering it to actually do processing it and so on and internalize it. And I think both are valid, and I think both are really good strategies. And the interesting thing is when I split it into this internal memory strategies and external memory strategies, what you often find is sometimes you do what you think is an external memory strategy, is, I'm just going to write that note down. But then you realize inside, it's done something. And tests have shown this, psychological tests have shown this. Students who write some instructions down and then lose the bit of paper remember it more than those who listen to the instructions repeatedly. They don't remember it as well. And it's a well known fact. And then you double that up by saying, right, okay, you're both writing things down, but this time we want you to one group to doodle and draw it down and the other group to just write down words. And the doodling group doubles their attention on the writing down words, to their surprise because a lot of them are like, oh, I can't remember all the details. And you're like, well, we're going to give you a test. And they do a test and they actually do better in the test. And so it's fascinating what happens when you do something on the outside. Often it organizes what's inside.

Erica: So I think you've brought up a great point, which is that it's really, when you get down to it, nothing's purely internal or external. It's really a combination of it's just what is the leading idea. So, for example, when you say writing well, when you're writing, you're using your inner voice most of the time because you're kind of saying it out loud in your head, right? And then you're putting it down on paper and it's kind of an interplay between internal and external. So I think we are going to be talking about these as internal and external and even some that are internal external strategies, knowing that they largely are both. It's a mixture. But in our discussion, we're going to say, well, this one is largely internal and this one is largely external. Or these we just couldn't decide. And so I think it's going to be a fun way of breaking up the discussion. So where would you like to get started? Would you like to get started on internal or external?

Darius: Let's go for internal. Let's talk about internalizing, our memories first.

Erica: Okay, that sounds great. So let's start off with mnemonics. Mnemonics is just another name for memory strategies. And Mnemonics can be visual, actually. It can really be anything. It could be visual, auditory. It could actually be tactile, I suppose. But we'll focus on visual and auditory forms and mnemonics. And you may have heard of acronyms or Acrostics. And those are two types of mnemonics. So an acronym, we all know the acronym roy G. BIV for remembering the colors of the rainbow. And then Acrostics is similar but a little different. That's where we take if there are a series of things that we have to memorize, we take the first letter and create like a silly sentence that helps us, that triggers us to each of those letters. And then those letters trigger us to what we're trying to remember. And there's the popular Acrostic, which is, please excuse my dear Aunt Sally, which is what we've used for many years in the States for order of operations. Do you guys also have that one?

Darius: No.

Erica: What's that order of operations? It tells you what are the operations that you have to go through when you're doing kind of simple algebra, I guess it would be considered. First you look at the parentheses, then you look at the exponents, then you look at multiplication, division, addition, and then subtraction. So that's the order of operations you go through. But, yeah, I think everybody in the United States knows that one, so it's funny you guys don't have one for that.

Darius: Well, I don't remember it. I don't remember it. It's not in common violence.

Erica: Right. So I think mnemonics are really fun. I'd love to talk about hooking under mnemonics, which is my favorite way. Um, it's a very conscious way of using mnemonics, where you're hooking the question to the answer, which I find is a strategy I teach the primary and best strategy, my favorite strategy for teaching memory techniques, because, again, it organizes the information so that when you see the question, the answer comes out. And you can have visual hooks or you can have auditory hooks. So it's a matter of looking at a word and saying, all right, what's the first thing that this reminds you of, either visually or auditorily, and then hooking it? And the classic example I often give is the word benevolent. If you didn't know what benevolent meant, it's a matter of, like, what's the first thing you see if you write it out or hear? When you think of benevolent, what's the first thing that pops into your mind?

Darius: Ben.

Erica: Ben. Okay, so that could be a great hook.

Darius: I see Mr. Ben with this black cap, and it was a TV show when I was younger, mr. Ben.

Erica: Okay. And was he a kind hearted character?

Darius: He was very kind. Mr. Ben was lovely. Yes.

Erica: Oh, that's perfect. So then that will help you to remember what benevolent is, which is kind hearted. So you just think of Mr. Ben, and the answer is right in the question.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: Now everybody is going to see something different and benevolent. I've used that example for over 20 years, and nobody has ever given me that one. And the trick is that you want to go with whatever they see in it. Some other fun ones that I've heard is it sounds like be not violent. There's the word love spelled backwards in it, lent. If you lent something, then you're very kind hearted, so there are lots of them. And it's funny because I always get such a kick out of it when people think of something that no one's ever thought of. And you did that today, so thank you. But hooking is just such a beautiful, mindful conscious way of using mnemonics that is extraordinarily fun. And to me, when I'm working with students, it gamifies test taking.

Darius: What I find fascinating here is, as we're talking about it, is most of your students are younger people and students who are learning stuff. And most of my clients are professionals who are planning and doing an executive function type in the work realm where there's less memorization involved. And actually, there's such a stream of information coming that it's more remembering what your plans are, your goals are remembering your course. It's more that inhibitory control of staying focused on your course, staying the course that a lot of this information coming at you does. And I think I was taken this week. I keep hearing this quote by Elon Musk. He keeps talking about our minds are actually deleting machines. Like we remember very little, and we know we remember very little. So our brains are just designed to delete whatever we think is not that relevant and grab onto what is relevant. But so often we're getting so much information thrown at us, it's deciding what's relevant and what's not. And that's sometimes an important thing. It's one thing remembering things, but it's another thing trying to remember what's important. You got any thoughts on that?

Erica: Yeah, I love what you're saying, because the path that's taking me down, which is a path that we always go down, it seems like, is that you can never really pull executive functioning apart. That it's not just working memory, it's inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. They're so intertwined, they're so mixed up, that you can't really say, well, working memories in charge of memory? No, because you have to be conscious. You have to use your inhibitory control to be able to focus your attention. And you have to have the cognitive flexibility to, just even when you're coming up with a memory strategy, you have to be cognitively flexible. I can't say, well, the only way to remember benevolent is to see the word love in there. That would be very inflexible. And allowing kids to come up with their own memory strategy, because it's what they see is much more flexibility. I see you have a thought. Tell me.

Darius: You know what this reminds me of is the process of remembering something with doodles. One way to remember things is to internalize a memory, is to externalize it by doodling and drawing. Okay. And, um, there's an interesting progression in remembering things for tests and exams, that whenever I'm with a student I was with some students this weekend, and one of them had drawn a boat in great detail. And I said, look, when you're doing a mind map and you're having to draw something really quite quickly, you don't have time to spend 15 or 30 seconds drawing a detailed boat. You need to simplify it. And so there's this process of going from, oh, I'm drawing a picture, to oh, I'm drawing a doodle, to oh, I'm drawing a symbol. And so you start to symbolize it. And there's this subtraction method of memorization. So sometimes when you're memorizing, you're adding information like benevolent, add information, like Mr. Ben gets added into it to enrich it, to create that link. But then there comes another stage where you might write benevolent out and draw Mr. Ben on the top and help you remember it. But then Mr. Ben, who has this black top hat, it might just be benevolent with a black top hat.

Erica: Right? Yeah right, simplifying, you're right, simplifying.

Darius: And then you might actually take benevolent away and just have the top hat and you go, oh that's benevolent. And then the top hat might actually just become one line with a half curve over the top. It's not got any color or shape or anything. And you go, oh that's benevolent because benevolent might end up becoming a very important part of screenplay a that you're studying for English literature or something like that. Benevolent is a key theme and you keep coming across this theme so you can draw the little hat down the side and no one would realize what that is. But you know, oh, that's a reference to benevolent, et cetera. And so whenever I'm teaching people with limited memories is to simplify, simplify, simplify until you create your own shorthand, as it were. I think this principle happens in any different ways of remembering something. You start off with quite a big cognitive load of oh I'm imagining this and then you simplify it and simplify it and simplify it until it's the point where I walk in the front door and I always put my keys on this tray or on this hook. That's a form of memory of Locai visual spatial sketch pad. You're moving in and you're remembering by space and you simplify it to having one spot where you do one thing. And so you can be very intentional about simplifying to I think that's a key thing to relieve the memory burden.

Erica: Yeah well that's another piece of um another way of enhancing memory for sure. I love that. That was really beautiful. So yeah, we're not necessarily talking, maybe we won't really break it down as here are all the internal I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about all my internal ones and you're going to respond with your external.

Darius: Yes, let's do it.

Erica: So that works. There you go. Let's talk about space repetition next. Space repetition is something we've talked about and touched on quite a bit throughout our podcasts and I really like it and I find it to be such a valuable approach and tool to teach my students and unfortunately in the American education system I rarely see this taught or reinforced. I find that the vast majority of my students, if a teacher gives them testing materials, um, to prepare for a test, they give it to them right before the test, they don't give it to them the first day that the unit is assigned and say, here's everything you need to know for the test. But I feel that what ends up happening is the kids just passively learn, passively learn until the very last minute. Then they have to cram for the test. And all the research shows that that is an ineffective way to use our memory. That really what we need to be doing is we need to space out and have a repetition. Not all at the last minute, but throughout time. So when you listen to a lecture, you take your notes, you want to then that evening or the next day go back through your notes. So there's that repetition. Then you want to maybe reprocess it, you might highlight, and then maybe the next day you might throw, if not that day, the next day, the day after that, but even spaces between the time you learned it to the time you're tested. So then the next time maybe you're taking that information and putting into quizlet and maybe the next time you're practicing quizlet. But my belief is that you shouldn't ever be that far away from the repetition. Just a few days. Maybe sometimes it's just literally three to five minutes to look at it again. Because over time, memory tanks it does. But if you give yourself those 3510 minutes increments of revisiting that information and you can do it in many different ways, you can do index cards, but just that revisiting of the information keeps it fresh. So you're constantly skipping the surface instead of losing it and it just tanking. And it’s amazing when I teach my students to do that, but it's very hard to teach them how to do it because it's really hard for them because they've been really programmed to leave it to the last minute. It's just amazing how everything shifts and changes for them. And then even in that moment when they're doing the space repetition, I'll say let's integrate the memory strategies while we're doing the space repetition. When the test is announced, they pretty much know everything. It's not stressful to prepare for a test anymore. What are your thoughts?

Darius: Yeah, I looked at some research a while back about scientists looking at space repetition and trying to figure out what is the optimum space and what are the minimum contacts required? So how many times do you need to touch something before it goes into your memory and what are the gaps? And I think the optimum they came up with was a 1 hour after learning it a one day, a three day, a seven day, and a 30 day. And the key they found out was that actually it's important that you start to really forget it, to remember it. So what happens is after an hour you forget a lot, but then you refresh it within hours. So you're starting to forget quite a lot of it after an hour. What was that lecture about? I can't remember. Oh gosh. And then you refresh it and it's slipping away and then you bring it back and it gets reinforced with another set of neuron pathways to it rather than the same one that you started with. So it's got a slightly bigger network and then you leave it for three days and after three days you're forgetting quite a lot of it and you're just holding on to a little bit and then you oh gosh. Yes. Oh gosh. So you've still got enough memory to hook it onto. Not so much that you're starting from scratch again, but not too much where you go, oh yeah, I kind of know all this already. So it's just that sweet spot of forgetting it enough so that it restrengthens it in a different direction, and then a week later, and then M 30 days later, I can't remember the exact day interval.

Erica: I think there's a twelve or 13 day in there. I've seen those intervals. I mean, unfortunately that doesn't always work with my students schedule, so I just encourage them to do it as much as they can because sometimes they just have too much homework. So you don't have to be that crazy rigid about it. But that is what the research suggests. Yeah, there is a pattern that is supposed to be optimal.

Darius: Let me share you with something that's just been released by Good Notes. Okay. Good notes have got flashcards, but they've upgraded their flashcards to study time or something like that, right? So in their flashcards, you create your flashcards. You draw a picture and then on the right at back of it, you write some writing and then you click through them and it flips it. Okay. So there you've got you draw a doodle to visualize it and internalize it. And then on the back you write your text. And then what it does is it figures out in the background when you should see that one again, whether it should be three days, 14 days, or 30 days. And so it starts throwing them at you at the time it thinks. So what you do is when you go through it, you say, were you strong in that? And you click yes or no. And it then decides when to share with you the yes and when to share with you the no. So isn't that interesting that these tech things are putting that research in the background to try and save you from having to think, I haven't done this for 30 days. Let's go back. Because some people literally have a grid on a spreadsheet where they make sure I've revisited these notes so many times because it is actually the most efficient way of memorizing.

Erica: Yeah, well, but I also think that it's important to listen to what works for you. I think that there are those people that tend to forget a little bit faster or they hold on to information a little bit longer. So I think that that tends to be the average way of doing it. And so if there's something that works better for you, whether you're doing it more often or less often, paying attention to that and letting it work for you. But here, let's move on to the next one. Pegging is really interesting and that's where we're associating numbers with specific mental pegs and. That can be used as a way to remember things. So, for example, if you think of and you really define what your pegs are. So maybe one peg, one I, usually go with rhymes. One sun, two shoe, three tree, four door. And then if you have a sequence of things that you have to remember, you associate it with the imagery. So if I had to remember to pick up apples and it was one sun, I'd be like, oh, it's an apple sun. There must be something going on strange in the atmosphere. It looks like an apple, right? And then two shoe. And maybe I would need it a banana. Oh, okay. I'm going to visualize a banana sticking out of my shoe. And it's interesting, it seems like you're having to remember a lot more, but in fact, it's amazing how it works. And let's say three is tree, and say I wanted to pick up cherries, and I'm like, oh, it's a cherry tree and they're big, giant, juicy cherries. And it's funny, when you add more visual detail, it tends to help to encode it a little bit more or more senses, like, oh, they're really tart. Just the word tart makes my mouth water and that I have them m having a physiological reaction. So I am going to remember it's a cherry tree, but you could see. So now it's pretty easy for me to remember. Okay, so what were the three things I had to get at the grocery store? One sun. Oh, apple, two shoe. Oh, banana, three tree, cherries. It's amazing how it works. And if you have to remember ten things, it works really well. You just have to establish your pegs so that you know them automatically. And then once you can do that, once you do that, you can associate different things with it and it AIDS memory. So you don't necessarily have to write things down. And there's something to using that because technology can weaken our mind. And the more we actually utilize our capacity to memorize without these tech tools or without writing things down, the stronger, our memory gets. So it's fun just to every now and then, instead of writing your grocery list on, have fun with your partner or with your kids, using something like pegging or the Peg word method, some people call it, to remember your grocery lists. What are your thoughts on that?

Darius: Yes, I use the same similar methods. I use them to remember my Pin number for my bank card.

Erica: Oh, that's cool. How do you remember a number with a number?

Darius: I remember a number with a letter.

Erica: Oh, that's really interesting.

Darius: Okay, I can't remember numbers, so if I had to remember 6382, let's say 63826 would be ch, eight is F, so it would be chaff, et cetera. And so I've memorized I have ten letters, a letter that goes with each number so that I can turn any number into a word and I remember.

Erica: I guess I won't ask you what your code is in words because if somebody else knows it, then they'll know your passcode.

Darius: I learned this famous Greek memorizers mnemonics, and what they do is they encode every number into a word or a picture. And you can memorize a deck of cards that way. I've memorized the deck of cards that way. So you can just shuffle the card, look at each one, and then turn it back over and someone turns it over and you can tell them what the next card is and things like that. Well, I have a terrible memory. I can do it. But you know how we were talking about how it decays? Your memory decrees some people's memories decay much faster than others. Everyone's memory decays. I have a very rapid decaying memory, so I find those techniques don't really stick with me for very long. I have to use other techniques because you have a strong memory in that way. I don't. And so it's fascinating to see how you gravitate towards that. I don't gravitate towards that, although I can do it if I really need to. What I gravitate towards is the method of locai a lot more this visual spatial. So that's why maps are so important for me. I mind map a lot, and so I can remember where something was written on the page versus the cherry tree, so it was up there and then that was down there, and so on. So I'll remember the symbols and the shapes and the positions of them. So that's why mind mapping really helps for my memory. First of all, I have to externalize it because my memory decays so quickly, I externalize it as rapidly as I can, and then I symbolize it as rapidly as I can and put it in a position as unique as I can, and then I go away from it. And then a day later, instead of looking at the map, um, I teach children to do this. Don't look at the map. To do space repetition, turn upside down, do a quick flash map in 1 minute to see what or where you can still remember what has not decayed. And then you flick it over and you oh, that's that. Ah, that's, that, that's that. And it strengthens it much more. So a key element in space repetition is not to look at the material, straight away. It is actually to try and force yourself to remember it and then look at it.

Erica: Interesting. Yeah, that's really cool. Well, method of locai you're talking about kind of spatial method of locai, actually is really interesting, and it includes that. And in fact, you could use that same technique to remember your grocery list.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Whereas you imagine yourself moving from one location to another location. So you might imagine yourself laying in bed and then going to the kitchen and what you do is you say, okay, what's the first thing I see? Well, the first thing I see is my comforter. Okay, so what are you going to associate with the comforter? Oh, say it was the same list. I have a comforter with apples all over it. So you visualize this comforter with and I, again, go very visual. Like, what color are the apples? Oh, well, they're red. Is there anything else on there? Oh, they have a little green leaf. Okay, so can you see your comforter? Yeah. So what's the next thing that you see? Oh, well, I see the door. All right, can you, um, imagine a, um, banana? What does that look like on your door? And so forth. But the thing is, for many people, it's really easy for them to imagine what's the next thing you're going to see along a pathway, and then you associate that other thing that you want to learn or to pick up, and it works quite well. And then you can pick different pathways for different lists, so then they don't necessarily collide, although a lot of people say that they can kind of consciously wipe their slate clean and start over again and use the same path pathway.

Darius: Most people who do these memory techniques very intentionally, they rely on the decay of the memory to wipe it clean. So they use certain sets of places, and then they allow it to wipe clean through memory decay. It's interesting. I find the method of locai going around a room or your memory palace of a room or a house actually really quite hard because I can't remember a lot of those things. It's weird. And so what I end up doing is there's another memory champion in the UK. What he did, instead of the memory palace was walking through outside spaces that are much bigger. And so I find it easier in a big space like the local park. There's a memorial here, there's a rock there, there's this bench here. And I can visualize that because there's more space in my mind, as it were, and the feeling of it. And there's more locai, as it were. So I can really feel oh, that is way over there on the memorial, and this is way over here on the climbing frame, and this is way over there. But they're all connected. So, like, if you really wants to memorize something for an exam, for example, for a law exam or something like I've done in the past, is I would create a mind map. I would draw the details and I'd get all the information from a whole topic onto one sheet of paper, so I could answer every single paper from one sheet of paper, so it's got every key idea on that one sheet of paper as a map. And then to really reinforce it, I would take that map and I can redraw it from memory and then I would actually place it as if I'm stretching it out over a huge play park or area, and I could walk around that map and say, oh, that belongs there, that belongs here. Because they're all connected to different things. Do you get my drift? So you're combining both.

Erica: Yeah. So actually what you're doing is you're being very multisensory. You're bringing movement, you're bringing tactile pieces into it. You're bringing visual and visualization. And I would imagine you're using your inner voice quite a bit, and you're spatializing. So basically what you're doing and this is what I often express to all of my students, which is whenever you combine techniques, it enhances memory exponentially. So if you're pretty good at visualization and you're pretty good at remembering things you've drawn out, when you combine them, then it's even more powerful. So what I've noticed with you is that you use a variety of techniques. You use a variety of sensory receptors, and the more receptors you use, the better the encoding and retrieval. What are your thoughts on that?

Darius: The thing with all of this, right, is tying it back to working memory. So we've been thinking a lot about memory itself, but I struggle because I know all of these techniques, and I can use all of these techniques, and I can teach all of these techniques to help people remember. But actually what I find is, in work and day to day life, there isn't a huge amount of need for memorizing. But I still have to really focus in on working memory a lot. And my emphasis so often in my life now is just empty your working memory as rapidly as possible. Just get it out and take a note of it somewhere. So I actually find right now in my life and with my clients and so on and, adults, is that the issue isn't memorizing. The issue is getting the memory clear. So I've, um, got head space to think that's one of the biggest challenges is, like, when you're a child, everything is focused in on remembering stuff. And then when you're an adult, you're kind of like, look, that memory is done, but you need to think about what your focus is. Having a clear mind, not getting distracted, et cetera. But then working memory is a key element in that. Do you know what I mean? It's not just inhibitory control, and I think that's something that is. So when we think about working memory, we might be thinking, right, that's about memory. And I know as students, it really is about memory. But as adults, what's your take on adults and working memory and clearing it out and keeping it fresh?

Erica: Well, I think it just goes to show you that different people need different things. I need organization. I need organization, and I need to be conscious. So I need conscious organization, which is very different than what you need, but it goes back to those kind of twelve ways of processing. Some people need it to be visual, some people need it to be tackled. The organization piece that I need is for it to be spatially organized, kind of categorized versus sequenced. I don't like sequences, but everybody's very particular. Other people need to process out loud. So there are these different ways that we need to process that help us to encode. And it's the encoding, so some people need like I need the consciousness to encode and I need the organization to retrieve, because when I consciously encode in an organized way, I can then retrieve it very successfully. But if I don't consciously organize it then it's not as accessible.

Darius: But you're not using memory strategies to consciously organize in that setup. You're writing it down and you're structuring no. Okay, tell me more.

Erica: Sometimes it's more of an internal thing of just organizing information. It's not an external, really, for me. Yeah, I don't write things out like you do nearly as much.

Darius: I find that so amazing because my wife is like that too. My wife can mentally just chunk things together and so on. That's why I keep going on about this external emptying of the memory. Because for me, it's so important to just get it out. And for me to see it outside myself, it's so important to see it as a list or as bullet points or as a map or whatever. I just need to see it outside. For example, if my wife is saying, here are some of the things that we're going to be doing on the holiday, okay, we're going to have lunch on Sunday, and then on Thursday we're going on this place, and then on Tuesday we're doing this. And then she's got the whole order in her head and that she's just jumping around and there's seven items and I'm like, there is no way I'm going to keep up with this conversation unless I write this down. And I've become self aware that I go, I'm really sorry, Joe, but I just could you say that again? I type it out into my phone. So I externalize it and I've now got enough headspace to actually properly have a conversation about it, rather than using my headspace to juggle. Was she saying, Sunday was the lunch and Tuesday was this? And I feel like I'm juggling all these things instead of actually properly communicating with her. And so for me, that's my challenge with working memory, is that my working memory gets filled up so quickly that visual Spatial sketch pad that stage can only hold two or three characters on the stage at once. And that's it. So that the real estate in my working memory. I just don't have the time to use a memory strategy to put it in the right place or to chunk cluster them all together and so on. I just don't have the time, I have to get it straight out. And so what's quite revealing in this conversation, because you think everyone thinks like you, don't you?

Erica: That's right. And in fact, you know, as you were speaking, I was thinking I use my inner voice a lot. So, for example, and this is another memory strategy, which is rhymes. And I'll give you a good example. So I often will use rhymes to help me remember people's names. So it's funny. I met a girl in my I'm taking a ceramics class, which is just fabulous. And I met a girl, and her name was Jen. And I can remember because I'm thinking of my memory strategy, which was Jen's a ten. She's a really pretty girl.

Darius: Jen's a ten.

Erica: Okay.

Darius: Got it.

Erica: And when I said yeah, I said, I'm going to have to use a memory strategy for this. I said, I need to start practicing what I'm preaching, so I'm going to use a memory strategy. And I was going through I'm like, what are some things that rhyme with your name? And we were laughing about it. And then we ended on Jen's Attend, which I think she appreciated. And I said, and I'm Erica America, and everybody in the class laughed at me. And whenever I do workshops, I do this around the circle with everybody. And there are hilarious ones, like some people for the rest of their life. Like Julie's always going to be Julie Pooley. And that's what the kids called her when she was young. And I remember what some other funny ones were. Caring Karen. Yeah, right. And it works really well. Michelle Smell. I mean, we were roaring over that one because everybody comes up with their own memory strategy for everybody else. And we're like, why did you pick that? She said, because that's what all the kids said when I was little. And it was really, really upsetting. But again, because it was so upsetting, it makes it more emotional. And it's just a wonderful way to remember names is to use rhymes or well, there are many different ways you can do it. But for me, just saying their name is not enough. It's gone. But adding a rhyme but it is a matter of utilizing that inner voice.

Darius: I love that you got them to choose their own one rather than putting one onto them. That's a really genius way of doing it in a workshop. Love it.

Erica: Yeah, it's fun. It works really well. So there's one more internal one that I wanted to review, which was linking. So with the linking one, it's about creating a story or a narrative that links the piece of information to aid recall. So when we talked about the well, even the michelle you Smell, there was a story behind it. And Julie Pooley, there was a story behind that. And even with Benevolent, there was a whole story behind Mr. Ben that helped you remember benevolent. So when we integrate a story, it makes it incredibly memorable. And in fact, if we add emotion to that, we can trick our, um, amygdala, which is the best, really, memory part of our brain, because it's there as a survival mechanism. But if we make things highly emotional, funny, weird, scary, then it makes it more memorable. So I'm often telling my kids, make them weird or emotional or inappropriate, because then we trick our amygdal into helping us remember.

Darius: Yeah, well, I have kind of got to the stage where I can do all of these, and I've tried really hard to do all of these. But internally, my end result now is I just need a memory system. I need an external digital memory. So what my conclusion has been for me, I just need to be able to empty my mind straight into Apple notes, for example. So I've got a memory of all the important things I've done. Ah, a quick word or a bullet point or a key thing. Someone said the name of a book. It might even just be a word or two. I can put it straight somewhere and I can find it in chronological order. The key for me is I need a memory, and I don't have a very good memory, so I need to work with my working memory and my memory. And so the way I've done it is I've just decided I'm creating a digital brain. I'm intentionally creating a digital brain, intentionally creating a digital memory. The memory is the beginning layer of the brain. And so I do it in three ways. I give myself a photographic memory by taking photographs. I wish I had a photographic memory, but I don't. But I've got a phone. I take photographs and I put them into my notes. And photographs are very rich for me. I can go in there, oh, gosh, yes, et cetera. So that's a good memory strategy for me. I take a photo, I take a note, I take a scan, I take an audio note, I do some voice to text. These are all ways of me creating a memory. I create a mind map, et cetera. So the three main areas that I've really been focusing on recently is taking notes, making maps, and, um, setting goals. Those are the three areas. I just keep circling around them. If I feel a little bit stressed or I feel like a little bit off target or whatever, I go, Right, have I taken some notes? I've taken notes. Have I got a map for this? Can I orientate myself? And I go, oh, no, I don't. All right, I'll just quickly do a quick mind map and oh, thank goodness, yes, I've got it there. Yeah. Or I might have a map and I have a look at it. No, I don't need a map. I just need a route, I need a goal. And so right. What's the goal? Open up reminders and go through my reminders, go through my vision board or my one three five goal list or something like that. So what I found is that for me, I need to make my memory external a lot more.

Erica: I have an important question for you. Do you have to use the GPS for every place that you go to?

Darius: GPS? Oh, a roadmap? Yes. No, not always. Yes and no. It depends on I have a very good sense of direction, but I get lost, I get lost a lot.

Erica: Very good sense of direction because I get distracted. I suspect that there are parts of your memory that are very good. I think that you've actually got a very good visual memory and I think you've got a very good spatial memory.

Darius: Yeah, I'm on the 99th centile for spatial memory.

Erica: Okay. So you are always saying I have a terrible memory, is that true?

Darius: Okay, right. Yes, I know where you're getting at here. Yes and no. Okay. Because the spatial memory is really useful within certain contexts, but it takes a lot of cognitive load to take a book title that a friend has just given you and start converting it and translating it into a spatial memory. Okay. So I've decided I'm not going to use the memory strategy for that. I do not have the cognitive time, I do not have the head space, I do not want to do that. I do not want to make myself feel guilty for not doing that and not having memory. I'm going to write it down.

Erica: Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think what you're really hitting on is that you are supporting your working memory so that you can maintain attention. It's hard for you to maintain attention when your working memory is over full.

Darius: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm so passionate about this with regard to memory is that people like you, for example, you actually have although you're Dyslexic, I suspect my working memory is much more narrow than yours and my memory working memory gets overwhelmed much quicker. And so I have to put in different compensatory strategies to do that. And I've often noticed with my daughter and other people with Dyslexia, for example, who do have some working memory issues as well as processing issues, not everybody with Dyslexia has working memory issues, but often they do that. They can often talk round and round in circles a lot. And it's kind of like they're juggling. They're keeping lots of ideas juggling in their head. Because I need to keep talking about this and I need to keep talking that. Because they're juggling that idea and they haven't actually found a place to take those actors off the stage of the working memory, put them in their place and then let new people come in and so they can go round.

Erica: Around. I think that a big piece of what's difficult for you is the culprit, I think, is more the inhibitory control, because I think people that have what I like to call attention surplus, I can focus. I'm very focused. I'm, in many cases, too focused. And I think you have attention surplus, but when you have attention surplus, you actually sometimes have two or three stages going at once. And I think it's not that your working memory okay, your working memory is limited, but I think it's limited because your attention is in more than one place. Is that possible?

Darius: Fascinating. I love that idea. Okay, so what you're saying is I'm thinking about three different things at once. Like, my awareness is on three wide angled awareness, as it were. I can see, oh, that actor would be useful to bring onto the stage. That actor and that actor that I'm only taking. There's not enough space on the stage because I'm trying to pull in a little bit of everything.

Erica: Or maybe you actually have three stages going on at the same time.

Darius: Could you have three stages going on if you've just got one working memory?

Erica: Well, I think that maybe you have more than one working memory going on, which is why they're limited. So the one hand, you're thinking about maybe dinner with your wife, yet on the other hand, you're thinking about what you're working on right now. And part of the reason why you have a limited capacity for working memories because you have split attention, or you can't sustain it. It's just an interesting theory.

Darius: If I was to properly stress test it by looking at the circumstances recently, for example, I know when I'm deeply paying attention singularly to a person, okay, even then, I can feel it. I go 1.2 points, third point, and then I go, right. There's not enough room on the stage. I've got something's going to fall off that stage. I'm going to start concentrating on what I should be remembering, because if there are six ingredients to think about in this conversation, um, I end up having to juggle those six ingredients not with my working memory, but with just my awareness and attention, which seems slightly different. Do you know what I mean? And so, actually, using cognitive power that shouldn't be used for just placing people on the stage, uh, that should be used for looking at the interactions and relationships and so on, and really think listening to the person, et cetera. But I'm not, so I have to write it down in order to free up my headspace to actually listen to that person.

Erica: Interesting. So maybe that applies more to me and the reason why the whole idea of multiple stages can focus. However, if I'm at an event, like a party where there are multiple people speaking at once, I have that problem where I'm like, part of me is listening to this. Part of me listening to that part of me is looking at that, then I kind of fall apart because I have multiple stages going on at once, or the other person is talking so loud that it's just messing with my attention. So I think that I tend to have multiple stages auditorily, but not visually.

Darius: Well, once I've become aware of this personally, okay, I've, uh, started to notice in conversations, in meetings with people, I can tell when their working memories got filled. I can look at them. I can say, uh, they've just hit the threshold because the way they talk is different, right?

Erica: Or sometimes it's just that they need a brain break, this 20 minutes, and their brain is like, okay, I'm done for. Give me a little break.

Darius: Well, uh, I'll give you an example, a simple example discussing the holiday plans, okay? Person A has a working memory of seven units. Person B a working memory of five. And person Darius, a working memory of two to three. Two and a half, maybe two to three. It's three. Person A is often a very organized lots of things. There like, we're going to be doing this, we're going to be doing that, we're going to do this, we're going to be doing that. We're doing fifth item, 6th item, 7th item. And then they start talking about the 8th item, okay? And then something happens because their working memories just start to get overfilled and they're like, hold on a minute. Yeah, we need to be doing this, and we need to be doing that, and suddenly sort of dotting around. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: What did I.

Darius: Say? Remember, we're doing this on the Sunday, or, Remember, we're doing that on the Thursday. Oh, gosh, got to do this. And then you're kind of like, oh, my goodness, it's all gone Fickley pickley all of a sudden because you've gone past the number seven for that person. Okay? But for me, I was at that stage after three, okay, for number for the other person with five. They were at that stage at number five. But then the person with a stronger working memory is still talking and thinking are, uh, you not with me. You're like, no bloody way, because this is way too much to throw at me at once. Do you know what I mean? But if you had a whiteboard or a piece of paper or a calendar that you were looking at with the items listed on it, you'd all be going, yeah, no problem. Yeah, I think we need to be doing, oh, why don't we do that? And you'd all be on the same page, and your cognitive load will be focused in on actually being productive rather than holding on to basic little elements of memory. And I think that's one of the simplest and biggest issues in adult life, and especially also in children's life. I mean, parents do this to kids all the time. Especially those with dyslexia. They're like, oh, remember to do that. And remember, you got to brush your teeth. Remember, you got to go and get your bag and uh, your homework and put it in the bag. And remember, go and feed the guinea pigs. And don't forget you've got to put your shoes, get your shoes, your bike from outside. And the kids like, oh my goodness, there's no way I'm going to remember all that. And it happens all the time. And you really know what it feels like when you're on the receiving end of it, but you forget what it's like when you're on the giving end of it. And I see when I'm doing that with other people as well, I'm giving them lots of instructions as well. Like, oh my goodness, I'm overloading their working memory. Are they writing this down? No, they're not writing this down. I should say we need to write this down, don't we? And, uh, in a way, that's a form of leadership as well. It's not just about being self aware. It's about being self aware enough that you start doing something to help the other people round about you. So, for example, you're having a conversation about a family trip and we're doing this on Sunday and Thursday and so on. And often people can get stressed about that because they're like, oh, I really want to be doing that on Wednesday. Is that going to happen? Don't know if that's going to happen, where did this get lost? Et cetera. But the moment you bring out a board and you start drawing it out on the board, everyone knows, all right, that's still there. That's not lost. That's there everything's not disappearing in this sort of ether of memory. It's down. So you've not dropped the ball, you've put the ball down. I think that's part the key here. Instead of dropping the ball, which often people do with remembering important things, the key is putting it down. Putting it down with a memory strategy into your memory, or putting it down externally with taking a note or whatever, right?

Erica: And I think people that are good teachers tend to really combine. It's not just lecture, but it's a visual. And they might stop for a discussion to help the verbal learners, right? They may give you some time to process to yourself where you can reflect on it. They might even bring in some movement into it. So there are lots of different things that you can do. And this segues me to the two that we discovered where we couldn't decide whether they were internal or external. So let's talk about that. The first one is grouping, which is organizing information into related groups or categories to aid recall, which is huge for me. I love the game Scatteries, because it's the antithesis of grouping. When you play Scattergories, you roll, uh, a die that has letters on it. It might land on s. And then it gives you, I think it's twelve different things that you have to come up with that start with a letter S. So it'll say like food. And it might say things you can find at the park orchammer yeah, right. And so it's a tool or a game that I use with a lot of my students that have memory issues because I tell them we're playing this game because it's teaching you how to organize ideas cognitively into categories. It's using letters. But you don't always have to do that. You can organize things into multiple different, uh, categories. I have a game called hey, what's the big idea? And in that game they have different categories. It might be transportation. They have to organize the transportation cards into categories. And they might choose to organize it. And it's their choice how they organize it. They could organize it under letters, they could organize it under some forms of transportation are in the air and some are on the land, some are in water. But they can come up with their own way of organizing things. But I think kids and even adults to organize information into groups is it just amazing how much more you can recall. So if I just said, give me animals, you are not going to be able to recall nearly as much as if I say if I give you the categories of maybe domestic African, gave you a bunch of those main ideas. It's just amazing how that can help. And so that's we talked about it being an internal external thing because you can group things internally or you can group them externally.

Darius: Well, you're making me think about a little exercise that I do in one of the uh, mind mapping courses. Because mind mapping composes of keywords branches and doodles on the whole, proper drawn, hand drawn ones especially. And that the branching is so important in terms of categorizing and organizing. And one of the little exercises that uh, is to do with animals is we put out all these different animals, okay? And then I say we're going to organize these animals according to these categories. Ones you like, ones you don't like, ones you've seen and ones you've never seen, and different categories like that. So that's one way. And then we can categorize them according to another structure, which is by size, big ones, medium ones, so on. And then we can start categorizing them as a taxonomy, a proper taxonomy. These are the types of animals, mammals, fish, insects, and so on. And you create this structure and they start putting them in and so on. And the children start to realize that there's a real structure. All the different ways you can take the same information categorize it. But what's also fascinating about when you do this on the outside, it does change something on the inside. You're kind of rewiring the way your brain is looking at the world. You're kind of mapping out the world in a new way when you're chunking. And chunking is a key word in all of this. There's been research about how the brain needs to chunk information in order to give it proper meaning. And chunking basically means you either chunk stuff down or you chunk stuff up. So having 30 different items, you're like, oh, my goodness, this is overwhelming. But the brain likes to chunk it into at least six different categories at the most. Seven is just about too much. Three. Four is ideal sort of thing, and we've got those 30 animals into main chunks, et cetera. But if there was just one chunk, that would be too much. Again, you're back to just 30 things in one blob. So there's this chunking that is really useful for our minds.

Erica: And chunking is very interesting because when you think of working memory, you can say, well, if my working memory can take three items, it could take three letters, or it could take three words. Words are chunks of letters. So proper use of chunking also expands your working memory.

Darius: It does. And another way of doing that is, you know, your linking idea. Okay, this is where it's real useful. So let's say you've linked two or three ideas together. That becomes a chunk, that becomes like one unit. Or instead of three words, the cat, the dog and the parrot, you're talking about three principles like entropy, gravity and transpiration, and you've got three, but they're very big. But it's just three items being held in your working memory. And that's why so often it is really useful to teach children who have difficulties with big words to actually dissect them and visualize them and get to know them so they can understand metamorphosis properly, because it encapsulates so much. But it's just one unit of their working memory being used, and it expands the rest.

Erica: Yeah, that's exactly what Mnemonics do. Yes. So if you're like, oh, how am I going to remember all the colors of the.

Darius: Rainbow?

Erica: Yes, or you could chunk it into one royal bit.

Darius: That's one of the strongest arguments, actually, that I think it's really helped me, actually, what you've just said, which is one of the strongest arguments for going to the effort of the memory strategies, is that once you've chunked them down, the next time you encounter it, it's less likely to overwhelm your working memory. I love that with Roy G. BIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet. That's seven items I've got to remember. But Roy G. BIV is one, and I can unpack it if I need to, but I can keep it packaged up as one unit.

Erica: Yes, exactly. And now drum roll on to the final one, which I clumped them together. And they don't necessarily have to be together, but I put music and movement together. A lot of people have this extraordinary memory for melodies and for music. And they can really, really use that as a way to memorize things. I can remember learning the quadratic equation to Pop Goes the Weasel. It works brilliantly and I still know it. And it's amazing, some of these old songs that I would never have remembered something over a long period of time. I actually teach multiplication tables to public domain melodies. And it's just amazing how easy it becomes and how automatic it becomes.

Darius: You've got a great maths course on that that you showed me. It's absolutely fantastic, the times table techniques and so on, using the visual and fantastic. Highly recommend it, by the way, if you're wanting to remember math stuff.

Erica: Yeah, so what I wanted to do is create a multiplication tool that enables people to pick the memory strategy that they want. They might want a rhyme, they might want music, they might want body movements, which gets into movements. It even integrates pegword. But this way they can pick or visualization, they can pick what works for them, and then they can really master multiplication quickly.

Darius: But movement, you're talking about movement. But one example was for me, you had a thing that you can't remember it now, but really helped me at the time is you did multiplication with your fingers and doing times tables with your fingers. And, uh, that's an example of movement. And it being really helpful for remembering a times table.

Erica: Yeah, it's just kind of a fine motor movement, but even gross motor movements. I brought that into the publication, too, so that we had assigned on our body places for each of the numbers. So, for example, six was a tap of your left hip. And let's think about this. What was it? Right? And then three was a snap of your left finger. So six times six is 36. So you would do you tap your hip twice, and then you'd snap and tap your hip again. So six times anyway, there is just this way of teaching multiplication because some kids are just great at, uh, remembering movements. They can remember dance routines, and if that's the case, then they can learn their multiplication tables on their bodies and integrate movements. But I love integrating movements, hand clapping stuff, any kind of I remember I had one student that just could not remember the process of long multiplication. So we turned it into a dance routine with a rhyme that went with it. And she'd step up, and then she'd step over, and then she would jump back and drop the ball. And then she would jump over, and then she'd jump up, and then she'd add up them all. It was so adorable, because to watch her do this, because once we did that, she never forgot it.

Darius: And then once she's done it physically, when she's got the multiplication, I bet you she's kind of inwardly doing that dance as well. So she's not necessarily moving outwardly, but she can inwardly feel doing that movement.

Erica: As well, but the rhyme that goes with it also guides her through the movements, so that helps, too. So, yeah, there's an example of using kind of multi memory strategies, but they work together anyway. Yeah. So that was a lot.

Darius: That was a lot. That was a lot. I mean, we did a memory episode. We covered some of the similar stuff in our one memory episode before, but we went into more depth with regard to how it integrates with working memory and things like that. I'm really glad we did that.

Erica: Yeah, well, and if anybody is really interested in going deep into the instruction of memory strategies, I do have it's actually an executive functioning course that goes into study strategies, and it's on my Learning Specialist Courses website. But I have a whole section that teaches them memory strategies, and it's video based, and it's really fun. So that's something you can check out, too, if you want to go deeper into that with your students.

Darius: And I'll do a shout out for what I'm into at the moment. If you want to learn how to create your own digital memory with Apple devices, apple notes, mind mapping and goal setting in a simple way, then get in touch with me, and I can give you some one to one coaching on that, or we're starting a community of people dyslexia productivity community.

Erica: So get in touch. Excellent links below. Yeah.

Darius: Bye bye.

Erica: Uh, thank you for joining our conversation here at the Personal Brain Trainer podcast.

Darius: This is Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran. Check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned in the podcast, and, um, please leave us a review and share us on social media. Until next time.