What is a Peg List?

Imagine pinning a list of things you want to remember to a peg board. Like most of what you will discover and create in the world of memory, the peg “board” is only limited to your imagination.

Once you have chosen your peg board, you then choose what information you want to stick on it.

Your First Peg Board: The Body

Welcome to your first tool in the world of trained memory! I have found the body peg list as a great place to start for two main reasons: we know it well, and we take it everywhere.

Your First Peg List: A Grocery List?

Now, I know teachers of these techniques that frown on using a grocery list instead of a list more in line with the subject content area.

I tend to agree in principle, but there will LOTS of examples of using these tools in context within the Lessons portion of this site, and the grocery list is a more inclusive and fun way to introduce the technique to the students.

If you would rather, you can start with a top ten list, such as top ten largest bodies of water, or the top ten largest animals. Once you know how to do it, you will easily see how one could remember the Bill of Rights just as easily.

Choose ten items that you would need to buy at the grocery store (or any store for that matter). If you need to go shopping soon, this would be a great time to make a list of actual products you might need.

If you are currently stocked up, then ten random items will work perfectly.

When you do this in class, have the students choose.

Pegging Information to the “Board”

Take the first item on your list and attach it to your feet.

For example, if the first item is milk, then how do picture putting milk on your feet? Use ALL OF THE SENSES. What does it look like when you put the milk on your feet? What does it sound like? Can you feel the milk hitting your feet? Maybe the milk is pouring FROM your feet! Only you know.

Take a minute to put yourself in this imaginary moment.

Next, place the next item on your shins and follow the same process.

To use ten pegs on your body, I use toes, shins, knees, thighs, waist, stomach, chest, neck, fact, and the top of my head. You can use many other parts of your body and create small, medium, and large lists.

Now, go back through immediately after creating the list and see if you can recall the items. Although it is certainly possible that you will remember nearly all, if not all, of the items on your first couple of attempts, it is important to go through them a couple times immediately. Start with the head and then go back through and start with the feet. Pick a random part and recall them that way.

Chances are, this is all you will need for a temporary list such as a grocery list. It is a safe bet that you will not want to memorize a grocery list long term, so a couple times through may be enough.

For information that you would like yourself or your students to stick into long-term memory, then you will need a bit more review. How much is largely up to experimentation, but one place to start would be using the advice from six-time world memory champion, Dominic O’Brien. He calls it the Rule of Five.

He recommends that the information be reviewed once immediately, another time after one day, then again after one week, one month, and finally, three months later.

This is not a hard, fast rule. It will change for everyone. Find what works for you. The important thing is to not underestimate the need to review,

When you teach teach the students, you will need to remember this after you move on to the next unit.

Don’t forget to take a minute throughout the weeks and months to review, in class, the material you want the students to remember.

Regardless of your intentions with the information you’ve stored, make sure you can go through the list without a mistake.

It may take some practice, and this is where you need to start making some mental notes regarding your process: What kind of scenes do you remember the best?

Congratulations! Once you complete this list and ensure you can remember it, you have placed your first tool into your Teach Memory Toolkit! At the very least, you have a wonderfully effective way to activate both sides of your students’ brains, either on random spare period, or scale it down for a warm-up activity.

Cheers!

Next Tool: The Number Peg List