Living Without Chaos

The Cost of Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness is both irritating and costly in any sphere of life, and this is particularly true in the world of business. If we are to remember a thing at the right time, we need more than a good memory; we need a system to handle our attention. There is no man who has no memory at all; there are thousands who have poor memories, a greater number who have fair memories, but the good and the excellent are not so plentiful.

EXERCISES

Exercise VI

When next you take a walk, resolve to notice as much as you can of the things that are in any degree unusual. You will, of course, see much that is familiar, the same kind of people wearing the same kind of clothes, and hear them using the same kind of talk; but keep your eyes and ears open for anything that is out of the common. Deliberately search for sights and sounds with an element of newness to you. When you have returned from your walk, hastily go over in your mind the route you took, then begin your memory exercise by starting at the end of your journey and going backward over the ground all the way to the beginning. This method of the return journey is a little difficult at first, but it is one of the finest mental exercises ever prescribed. You are developing your powers of observation; you are also training your concentration, memory, and reproductive imagination. If during the process of reconstructing your journey from the end to the beginning, you observe weak connections, places where recollection is difficult, study those weaknesses very closely, because they are bound to reveal memory defects which call for attention.

Exercise VII

The use of pen and pencil in recording observations is an excellent training in both speed and accuracy. The next time you visit a friend’s house, or the room of any building to which you are a stranger, or even the inside of a shop where you make a purchase, take two glances round the room, and when you get home take four sheets of paper and by means of rough designs or squares indicate what you can remember of the pictures on the walls. On a fifth sheet, put down the position of the furniture of the room and indicate the number of tables, chairs, and other articles. This can be made not only mentally profitable but socially fascinating. The members of a party can be provided with the proper materials, and allowed a certain time in which to look round a room. Marks can be awarded for accuracy, and if need be, a prize can be given to the winner.

Exercise VIII

The aim of this exercise is two-fold, first, to discover the limits of your ear memory; next, to train that memory until its efficiency is greatly increased.

Read one line of words aloud, allowing one second for each word. Then close your eyes and repeat from memory. If you can get someone to call them off for you so much the better.

1. Tree, Fig, Card, Ice.

2. Emboss, Embalm, Day, Joy.

3. Care, Carry, Fustian, Ring.

4. Don’t, Subaltern, Gibraltar, Fix.

5. Marry, Cost-accounts, relay, women.

Keep an account of the number of your mistakes for your own records.

We now come to longer lines of words. These are naturally more difficult than the shorter ones, and if, at first, there are more “slips” in recalling them, it should be remembered that practice soon develops more power. Ear memory work is excellent training for conversation in foreign languages. Waitresses who can take 10 verbal orders for food, and place it before the right people, have acquired good ear-memories.

1. Tub, Mill, Mix, Cigar, Paper.

2. Scrap, Room, Cork, Fat, Job, Duke.

3. Tube, Joss, Home, China, Fix, Star, Ham.

4. Skill, Teaser, Fob, Jay, Tobacco, Simply, Toil, Jam.

The way in which you should report results is as follows:

“In In the first list I had . . . . right and .. . . wrong.

“In the second list I had . . . . right and . . . . wrong.        ‘

“Wrong” means either an incorrect word, a word in the wrong place, or inability to recall a word.

Exercise IX

Take a walk and sit down. Listen to the sounds you can hear. From what direction do they come? How many are there, and what is the difference between them? Afterward, when reading nature descriptions, compare your knowledge of sounds with that of the author. If you cannot easily get into the country adapt the exercise to the sounds of the city. Repeat these exercises as opportunity serves but endeavor to preserve regularity.

DON’TS

I. Don’t be a grumbler. The man with an everlasting grouch usually grieves his chances out of existence.

2. Don’t aim too high, but aim high enough. Adjust your ambition to your abilities, and your ambition will grow accordingly.

3. Don’t bewail your lot. Instead of thus wasting your energy, use it to find a better position, or in other ways to enlarge your interests.

4. Don’t be afraid of being laughed at.

5. Don’t fail to see that the “Don’ts” just urged upon you are directly concerned with the development of mental efficiency.

6. Don’t be content with a low ideal. Give it an elevation.

DO THIS

1. Accustom your mind to the fact that the working methods of the Pelman Institute are based on long years of experience, and on a vast expenditure of money in experimental research of all kinds.

2. You may not always see how we are going to help you, but proceed confidently, and the whole plan will become plain.

3. There is a loss and a gain in every step forward. Something must be left behind. The loss is not important if you secure the gain: so know clearly what you want, then begin the task, cheerily.

4. Draw up your scale of values, the things of most worth. Among these are health of body and mind; friends; books; adequate money; inward peace; service to others.

5. To obtain these values you must work; they seldom come of their own accord. Self-expression is the chief method of attraction: it may just as easily attract the confidence of the moneyed man as that of the philosopher.

6. It has been said that all things work together for good. They do in the mental world; hence psycho-synthesis. Aim at the harmony of all functions both of the body and of the mind.