ADHD: The Link Technique for Memory

Memory is often a struggle for ADHD Hunters, but there are ways to improve it. Most start with the simple process of paying attention!

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Memory is often a struggle for ADHD Hunters, but there are ways to improve it. Most start with the simple process of paying attention!

Don, a dentist from Maryland, tells how he remembers things:

I attended a seminar last year for ADHD adults where the instructor taught us a technique for memory that was first developed by one of the ancient Greek philosophers, Socrates or Aristotle, I forget which. He used it to remember his speeches. More recently, the former stage mentalist Harry Lorayne has been teaching an improved version of it, and I see his ads on TV and keep meaning to buy one of his tapes.

But I use it for lots of things.

It involves turning anything you want to remember into an absurd picture in your mind, and then linking that with something else you want to remember.

So if I want to remember a list of things I have to do, I turn each thing on the list into an absurd picture.

If I have to remember to do something when 1 get home, I think of it and hook it to an absurd picture of the front door in my mind, so when I get home and see the door I’m reminded to do that thing.

Like if I want to remember to call Bill when I get home, I’ll imagine Bill hanging upside down from my front door, with a huge crowd of people around yelling and cheering.

This technique really works well, even though I’m hopelessly ab­sent-minded. The key is to make the pictures really huge, really absurd, and, totally outrageous.