I often found it impossible to remember names as a young teenager, because I couldn't remember the people exactly. If someone would have turned up who looked very similar to a person I knew I'd most likely mix them up. I even mixed up members of my family.
How I worked through this problem:
I'm way too old to draw cards or anything, thus I did the following all in my head. I tried to find something unique about every person that I needed to know the name off. It's not a good idea to start with 30 people - keeping it to, like, 5 in the beginning is way better. Every person has a characteristic thing about him or her, that can be a word or sentence they keep saying, the way they do their hair or some bag or cloak they carry around. Maybe what they like, pick at lunch, anything can be it really, as long as it's something easy to recognise and something personal. Then I tried to stick the name to the characteristic, that's memorising mostly.
By a list, a picture, writing it down to remember it, whatever works best for someone. At first it's hard, that's why it's better to try it on as few people as possible, but by now - take into consideration that it took me a while, it wasn't a matter of a few weeks or months - I can easily remember people.
Not always their names, I'll have to make an effort still, but I can recognise them and, if I want to, remember their name too. Hard training, I started when I was 15, now I'm 19, but it was worth it.
It has worked for me, maybe this helps others too.
07 Dec 2007, 1:32 pm
