Tip of the week

Take a quick walk. Need to retain information from a book or a meeting? Get moving—because activity gets blood flowing and helps the brain create lasting memories.

Think in pictures. Humans excel at remembering images, so invent visuals—the odder the better—when you need to remember a name, a password, or an item on a shopping list. Need to pick up milk? Imagine your car with milk spilling out the windows. Fear leaving your purse? Jump on one foot as you set it down; that’ll imprint the memory.

Create a ‘memory palace.’ To remember a series of items or chores, picture walking through your home and finding each item in a different room. When you need the memories, just imagine retracing your steps.

Review. The best way to commit something to memory—a favorite recipe, say—is to revisit it for a few minutes each day over a span of five or six days.

Source: Real Simple

And for those who have everything…

The idea of silencing your mobile phone each night by plunging it into a bowl of sand “has a certain poetry to it.” That’s why a U.K.-based design studio has created Komoru, a miniature Zen garden made explicitly to block electromagnetic signals from reaching or leaving your buried phone. The key are the sand grains, which are actually nickel-coated conductive microspheres that won’t scratch the phone or find a way into any of its ports. Shipments of Komoru, which is Japanese for “to seclude oneself,” should begin late this year.

$500 (est.), komoru.squarespace.com

Source: FastCompany.com

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