Hack #12: Overcome the Tip-of-the-Tongue Effect

Use what you can recall to help bootstrap your memory into remembering what you can't.

Additions and Suggestions

Concrete ideas to modify and expand this hack go here.

Discussion

This hack is like googling your memory, which of course is a useful technique to know. By way of analogy, this morning I briefly forgot the name of an author, but I knew the name of his most recent book (My Lucky Star) and that he is often compared to P.G. Wodehouse. I typed "my-lucky-star wodehouse" into Google, which is the closest thing we have to a global brain. Up came a page with the author's name in the title bar: Joe Keenan. In effect, I was priming Google.

-- Ron Hale-Evans [[DateTime?(2006-03-06T02:35:42Z)]]

Links

• Full text of hack (PDF)
• Priming tutorial (cache)
• Guide to tip-of-the-tongue experiences: http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/TOT.htm

Errata

Errata go here.

Hack Author

VaughanBell

Return to Main Book Page

This is a page for a hack from the book MindPerformanceHacks by Ron Hale-Evans.