LinkSystem

The link system is one of the simplest of all memory techniques and since aspects of this technique are used by many other techniques it is a useful one to start with.

The Link Words System does what its name suggests: it links words together into a long chain by using a sequence of events or a story. To recall the items you only need to recall the first stage, or the 'anchor' in order to remember the whole list.

Take the example of a shopping list. Imagine that you need to go shopping for the following items, Eggs, Cat food, Party balloons, Wrapping string, Bananas. First of all create your anchor; this should be a fixed location in your mental landscape and one which will bring to mind the whole list. In this case since you are shopping you could use a fixed location such as your kitchen fridge.

Now you create a story linking the items one by one to your anchor.

When you need to recall the list you simply imagine yourself in front of the fridge and the whole sequence comes back to mind. In principle this method can be used to remember a list of any length. It can also be used in conjunction with other memory systems such as the system of LociSystem, the MajorSystem or SemCubed to remember short lists of items.

One problem with this system is that to remember an item in a long list you have to mentally step through each stage of the story. (See the PegSystem for a solution to this.) For short lists however it is excellent.

Another possible problem is that if you forget an item in the list you have probably lost all the remaining items as well.