Before learning a speech, for example, it's better to read, reread and reread it again. Memory experts like IBM's own Grant Bright stress over-learning information in order to remember it. Bright, manager of advanced manufacturing engineering with the General Products Division in Tucson, Ariz., has been interested in the subject of memory since childhood. He has developed a four-hour module on memory improvement, which he teaches at IBM's professional development school in Tucson. He uses an acronym to illustrate six major rules that have helped him and others develop a good memory.
Motivation is the first essential, according to Bright.
You have to want to retain information and then work to do it. It also requires Concentration, the Confidence that you can retain it and Observation of what you need and want to remember. Bright's first five rules may be obvious, but as an example of the sixth, Intention, he suggests that most of us do not really listen when we are introduced. Without the intention of remembering a new name, it isn't likely it will be fed into the long-term memory filing cabinet. There is no single perfect system.