The Gist

JogLab helps you to create Jogs. Jogs are mnemonic devices (after the Greek memory God Mnemosene) used by many to enable learning and recall of themed information. Consider the old way to remember the colours of the rainbow: Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. The first letters of each word jog your memory to recall Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. The Richard of York jog provides a structure enabling complete theme recollection; we remember all colours of the 'Spectrum' theme and in this case we also get the information in a specific order. The process of creating a jog and comitting it to memory via cross-referencing jog and target words in your mind provides a mechanism for learning which will save you a great deal of time and be far more fun than staring at a page in a book. Using JogLab you can make creative jogs that will jog your memory and help you remember everything.

Association

Remembering information is based on association. 'Forgetting' is often the result of not truly remembering in the first place. Focussing on information in an original way is the key. Crafting a colourful and imaginative phrase that appeals to your mind and helps you arrive at useful information is the way forward. The more colourful and evocative the phrase the more accessible it will be to your brain and the easier to recall. Consider the jog Magic volcanoes erupt making jam sandwiches until nightfall; used to remember the planets in sequence (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) Easy to remember, right? Its all very simple using substitution and linking...

Substitution

Making the phrase, or jog, fun to your mind is critical. The jog used to reach your target word should be as evocative as possible, therefore selection of your jog-words is important. Using the word volcanoes to represent Venus might work because a volcano is an easily pictured object which can be modified in various ways in your creative mind. When creating jogs many people say that picturing lots of items, flying items or enourmous items helps encoding and recall. Colourful, active, crazy images can really work.

Linking

Getting from one item to the next is known as linking. JogLab makes creating this linked phrase very simple; the jog-phrase you create provides the mechanism for moving from item to item in your mind. In our Magic volcanoes erupt example the phrase would sound gramatically and semantically odd if omitting any of the jog words (except perhaps jam). When in your mind you repeat the jog and cross reference jog-words with target-words you strengthen neural pathways and build a lasting memory of your target information. You may later forget the jog, but the information will solidly persist in your mind.

Process

Boiling down a theme to a set or target words is an excellent way to begin a learning process; it creates understanding of your topic. Subsequently focusing on each of those key (target) words attempting to find a jog-word with which to elicit it strengthens the topic members in your mind. You will find that when you have created a jog the jog and target words become mutually reinforcing: in our Magic volcanoes example for planets you may spend a full minute attempting to remember which planet Volcanoes stands for- or which word in your Jog represents Venus. Shortly you will remember and strengthen both the jog and the target theme in your mind. The next time will be easier. You'll even learn while you sleep!

Usage

You can use JogLab to rapidly create jogs to enable recall of all manner of useful stuff. Have fun!

• Lists
• Groups of related information (themes).
• Topics to cover in a speech, exam question or argument.
• Numbers (my aunt Sally = 245; my having two letters, aunt having four, Sally having five.)