Improving information retention provides us many benefits. One is the ability to remember daily lessons better. Another is being able to effectively apply these lessons into tasks and success. For students, there is no better time to have good memory than during exams since most exams are based on what students have remembered during the review than what you have learned in classes. For other professionals, memory becomes very useful in performing their job right.

Memory, therefore, is important in daily life.

But no matter how we put it, there are people who still lack the ability to retain necessary information. The fact is, these people do not necessary lack the "ability". They only lack the necessary technique on how to retain information better.

The question now would be, "what are those techniques that would improve memory?"

First of all, memory techniques are not theories on how to improve memory; rather they are practical and proven methods.

There are two major ways to learn and remember: through vision and hearing.

Auditory learners - People who are inclined to remember better through their ears have the tendency to intently listen to instructions and intently retain what they hear. These people are most likely to relay auditory information to other people better or to transfer what they hear on their notes. They are also able to listen to information that is relatively unnoticeable to normal people. Auditory learners are not special though; they are just capable of learning better through their ears.

Visual learners - Visual learners posses the ability to remember vividly what they have seen. They can easily identify signs, symbols, images, directions, and written information. Visual learners make up roughly 65% of the population.

Having said these, here are the useful techniques to improve either your auditory and visual senses:

Image-Name Technique - Is helpful in remembering names. This technique is used basically to remember names with physical characteristic of a person. For example, KATIE HOLMES for "Her kitty (for Katie) is left alone in their home (for Holmes)".

Acrostic - Is taking the first letter of each word and inventing sentence out of it. For example, to remember the G-clef notes on the sheet music (E, G, B, D, F), we can use EVERY GOOD BOY DOES FINE.

Acronym - Is the opposite of acrostic. The first letter of each word of a series is taken out to form another word. For example, the colors of the rainbow are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, thus, ROY G. BIV. Another example would be Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telephase or IPMAT to remember the phases of cell division