Think of any personal development book you've read that impressed you. Now, can you remember the key points from that book? An acquaintance of mine likes to use Stephen Covey's wonderful book, "The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People" as an example when he's talking about improving recall.

If someone claims to have read it, he simply asks him or her to state the seven habits.

Boy, are many of them stumped to remember more than four or five! It doesn't have to be this way because in this article we'll look at some simple methods for improving recall and memory.

The Mind Map below is on NovaMind Connect at http://www.novamind.com/connect/nm_documents/459

There really is no substitute for regularly exercising your memorization skills. Just check out the top competitors in the World Memory Championships and you'll see that they make this a habitual part of their life.

You can start with memory systems that have been known for centuries, such as the 'peg system' and the 'Roman room.' These will give you confidence in memorizing lists of facts and figures.

And you'll be able to impress random people at parties! Yay! 8-|

In this Internet age most of us are bombarded with too much data to remember. The trick is to filter and organize the most important facts into meaningful patterns and associations. Traditionally teachers and students have done this in the form of note taking and testing. There's no doubt that testing does help to cement important information into long-term memory. The problem is that many students are either insufficiently motivated to do so or are simply unaware of the positive effects of regular and systematic review of learned material...or that there is a much easier way to remember...

Linear note taking is probably still the most popular way to record and make sense of data that has been taught or learned via self-study. Increasingly however many students, young and old, are turning to mind mapping software for help with extracting and making sense of the most important information. The act of not only recording but also arranging the data into meaningful patterns helps make stronger memory patterns within the brain.

Mind Mapping helps further by using flow, color, and images to hook in to both left and right brain thinking.

One of the problems in getting students to buy into a regular review of material is that they are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information as their studies continue! Another issue is that even people, who occasionally do review their notes, resent having to go over material they already know. But at the same time, it is important to know where the information fits together so that the right connections are made in your brain.

One of the benefits of using MindMaps for memorization is that you just use keywords on the branches of the MindMap, and the connections build the meaning, which is exactly the way your brain remembers and recalls information.

Your brain is especially good at remembering pictures, and seeing as a Mind Map is a picture, it is very easy for you to recall.

One way of enhancing your recall is by recreating the Mind Map from memory - you will find this much easier than working from written notes because you are engaging your whole brain. If you don't yet recall the words, you are likely to recall the shape of the branches, and the colors and relationships, and as you get those out there, you will almost always recall the remaining pieces. With text based recall, you have no clues to hang the recall on. With Mind Maps, you have the color, shape, keywords, relationships, images and styles, all of which help for an excellent recall.

Even with MindMaps, it is necessary to review the information at frequent intervals shortly after it has been learned to make the information etch a permanent path in our neural circuits. The neuroplacitiy of our brains works to help us remember information no matter how young or old we are, but also means that in order to make the knowledge permanent, it has to be revised. Most researchers recommend recall intervals of one day, one week, one month and so on.