A few weekends ago my village, Pleshey had a small craft fair and being new to the village I thought it was a great opportunity to meet new people So I walked around the village hall with Louise and the Kids and chatted with people

What was incredible was that everyone without fail asked my name at the start and then at the end said

“Sorry, what was your name again?”

Yes everyone had forgotten my name in less then 3 minutes, without fail!

Now I used to do this all the time myself however now I have a little trick that really helps

I can’t say I never forget anymore, but I have to ask that awful question a lot less often.

It’s a simple technique call “first name association” and I got it from the world memory champion Dominick O’Brien

It based on memory recall being based around the ALI principle which stands for Association, Location, and Imagination

So Here Goes

When someone gives you their name simply visualise them in a location

A location where you would expect someone with that first name to be

e.g if they said one of your parents’ names perhaps you could visualise them at your parents’ house

You can use friends, colleagues or famous people and the more hilarious the picture you paint in your mind the better

If you always use the same location for the same names it actually gets easier and quicker with practice

Now when you try to remember the name (often 30 seconds later!) you have a picture which should help you remember

If you want to keep remembering just re-think the visualisation every once in a while and hey presto

It does take some practice but quite quickly you won’t have to ask that embarrassing question

“Sorry, what was your name again?” quite so often

So have a memorable week when it comes to new people.

David Gardner