The famous Dale Carnegie memory techniques utilize the IRA Memory Formula.

IRA Memory Formula:

 I  = Impression.  Form a strong, clear, vivid mental impression. Etch it into your mind.
R = Repetition.    Repeat the mental picture, over and over again.
A = Association. Form a mental association with the item. Make it
       Exaggerated, In Color, and In Motion. Visualize a caricature of
       the actual object.  Add an emotional connection by involving
       your five senses with the item in your mental picture:
       See it. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Touch it.

The most powerful and effective of the three IRA Memory Formula techniques is Association.

And the two principal techniques of Association are Serial Association and Parallel Association.

Serial Association:
You first visualize a vivid mental picture for ITEM #1, then you visualize ITEM #2 and tie it in your mind to ITEM #1, then you visualize ITEM #3 and tie it in your mind to ITEM #2, etc. Make each item Larger than Life -- Exaggerated, In Color, and In Motion. Afterwards, in order to recall the entire list, you must first recall ITEM #1.

For example, to remember eggs, milk, and bread: Have the eggs breaking and dripping onto the milk carton. And have the milk carton dripping milk onto the bread and making it soggy wet. Smell the milk. Feel the broken eggs and cold milk dripping onto your feet and making your toes wet, cold and gooey. And you step on a slice of bread that has fallen out of the loaf, squashing it down flat. In your mind, add vivid and colorful logo details to the container for each item.

See the logo and brand name imprinted on the egg carton, the milk carton, and the bread container. So, you may visualize the dark red printing and logo on the gray carton of one dozen Large size Hickmans eggs, the bright green printing and logo on the white half-gallon carton of 2% Shamrock milk, and the bright orange printing and logo on the loaf of Holsum bread. Adding these specific details helps each item to become more mentally "sticky" (i.e. helps to "fire" more brain neurons), thus improving the results of the memory technique.

Make the details crazy, ridiculous, unusual, extraordinary, animated, nonsensical, cartoonish, and larger than life. After all, these are the things that get remembered, aren’t they? Make the scene so unique that it could never happen in real life. The only rule is: If it’s boring, it’s wrong.
(Ref.: http://my.opera.com/MsBeHaven/blog/show.dml/1845539)

Parallel Association:
The process is simple, yet extremely effective: You take a known image called a (Parallel) Memory Peg and combine it with the item that you wish to memorize. Utilize the IRA Formula to make the combination vivid and indelible in your mind. Make the image exaggerated, in color, and in motion. Connect the image with all five senses: See it. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Touch it.

You first memorize a series of vivid mental pictures called (Parallel) Memory Pegs such as 21 mental pictures associated with the consecutive numbers 1 to 21. Then, to memorize up to 21 items of your choice, you associate each item with something in the mental picture, i.e. with something in the (Parallel) Memory Peg, for that item number. Afterwards, your items can be recalled in any random order.

Parallel Memory Pegs -- 21 words/mental images for Parallel Association:

Memorize vivid mental pictures for these 21 Parallel Memory Pegs:
1. Run,  2. Zoo,  3. Tree,  4. Door,  5. Hive,  6. Sick,  7. Heaven,  8. Gate,  9. Wine, 10. Den, 11. Football Eleven, 12. Shelve, 13. Hurting, 14. Courting, 15. Lifting, 16. Licking, 17. Leavening, 18. Waiting, 19. Pining, 20. Plenty, and 21. Dueling Gun.

1.  Run Picture a horse race. The horses are at the starting gate. The gun sounds. The horses are off. They emerge, racing out of the starting gate. You look carefully, and bouncing along on top of each leather saddle, instead of a jockey, is ITEM #1. Example: See 10 loaves of Holsum bread, riding atop 10 race horses, galloping out of the starting gate. Each loaf has tiny arms and legs, and is bouncing up and down in the saddle. The plastic bread loaves break open, and slices of white bread begin falling down onto the race track. You can smell the yeast of the bread. The other horses are trampling the fallen slices of bread. 2.  Zoo Picture two gorillas at the zoo. They are separated by a large, deep water moat. One gorilla is throwing a large bright yellow banana high into the air, over to the other gorilla. You look carefully, and notice that the object is not a banana at all, but it is actually ITEM #2. Do something to the object to make it Exaggerated, In Color, and In Motion. Connect it with your five senses. Have it dripping, falling apart, tumbling, etc. See a few words of identification on the side of the object. If it is an airplane, see a Southwest jet airplane, with the Southwest orange and gold colors, and the "Southwest" logo displayed prominently on the side of the fuselage. See the jet towing a large banner behind the airplane with the word "Southwest" waving back and forth in the breeze. Visualize the two gorillas, tossing a large caricature of the Southwest jet airplane back and forth across the moat. 3.  Tree Picture the large TV antenna atop the old Westward Ho hotel in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Then see it as a huge Christmas tree, with dozens of electric ornaments shining from each tree branch. A wind is blowing, causing each ornament to wave back and forth on its branch. You look carefully, and you see that the tree ornaments are actually dozens and dozens of the ITEM #3. Do something to each item to etch it into your mind, such as to make it Exaggerated, In Color, and In Motion. Etc. See It. Hear It. Smell It. Taste It. Touch It. 4.  Door Picture a huge revolving door, made up of four wooden and glass panels, at the front entrance to the Westward Ho hotel. The door is rotating. You look, and instead of a person walking out of the door, you are amazed to discover that, with tiny arms and legs, it is actually ITEM #4. The door panel behind the item is pushing and squashing against ITEM #4. It is dripping and oozing out onto the floor in the doorway as it is being pushed along. See its vivid color. Smell It. Taste It. Touch It. 5.  Hive Picture a squadron of tiny airplane bombers flying overhead, and into the sunset. You look more closely and notice that they are not bombers, but they are tiny honey bees. And out of the "bomb bay" of each honey bee bomber something is falling out and tumbling downward. You look closely, and notice that each of the dozens of tiny "bombs" are actually ITEM #5. 6.  Sick Picture a man lying on the bed at the hospital. He is wearing only a scanty green "hospital gown". In comes a huge nurse, with an immense, long, hypodermic needle in her hand. She grabs him and turns him over, and starts to inject the needle into his rear hip. You look closely, and instead of a fluid inside the giant needle reservoir, you see ITEM #6. You share the man's agony and fear and pain. Now the hospital air conditioning is blowing ice cold air onto his bare skin. Brrrh! And the huge nurse is about to inject into his cold body the ITEM #6. 7.  Heaven Picture a golden spiral staircase extending all the way up to heaven. The sun is shining on the golden stairs, and it is reflecting brightly into your eyes. You look at the hundreds of steps on the golden staircase, and you see sitting atop each step one each of ITEM #7. See the wind blowing on the items. See the items beginning to blow off the stairs, and to tumble downward into the dark abyss, far below. See some identifying logo and printing on the side of each item. See its vivid color. Feel its surface texture. Smell it. Taste it. Touch it. 8.  Gate Picture a large metal gate, on a farm, out in the country. The gate has two large hinges. The gate swings open. It is sagging on its hinges because of a large weight on top. You look at the gate, and you notice a large, heavy object that is teetering precariously on the top of the gate. You look closely, and see that the object is actually ITEM #8. Visualize the ITEM #8. Like "Humpty Dumpty", it is getting ready to fall down to the ground, and to break into a thousand tiny pieces. 9.  Wine Picture a Spanish Caballero in his colorful ethnic costume. He is holding a wineskin container over his shoulder. He opens the end of the wineskin bag, and out begins to pour the delicious red wine, into your open mouth. You look closely, and instead of red wine pouring out, it is actually ITEM #9. Smell ITEM #9 as it pours out of the wineskin bag and into your waiting mouth. Feel and taste the cold ITEM #9 on your tongue. 10.  Den Picture a den (cave opening) in the side of a mountain. You and your friends are staying there for the night, protected from an icy cold snow storm raging just outside. You have a large wood fire burning just outside the den, to help you keep warm. The illumination of the fire shines on a pack of hungry wolves, who are waiting menacingly just beyond the fire. The large fire forms a protective barrier between you and the wolves. You see their white fangs, and hear their howls. You look more closely, and instead of a large wood fire separating you from the hungry wolves, it is ITEM #10. 11.  Football Eleven You are sitting high in a football stadium. Your team is down on the football field. You look at their uniforms, and on the back of each jersey, instead of the football team logo, you see a bright full color image of ITEM #11. See the players running, and see the image of ITEM #11, bouncing up and down on the backs of the players. 12.  Shelve Picture "Fibber McGee's Closet". You open the creaky closet door. The top shelf is filled to overflowing, and the items begin to plummet down on top of you, and to bang and squash against your body. You see that each item is actually ITEM #12. 13.  Hurting You are sitting high in a football stadium. The team kicker is about to kick the football for an extra point. He runs toward the football. He kicks the football with all of his might. Ouch! His foot is bleeding and hurting. You look more closely, and notice that, instead of a football, he has just kicked ITEM #13. 14.  Courting Picture two lovers sitting on a park bench. The man reaches over to embrace his lady love. And as he hugs her, he notices that an object is sitting on the bench between them. To his surprise, he is also hugging, and squashing, the ITEM #14. Visualize ITEM #14 being squashed, and the contents oozing out onto the park bench, and dripping down onto his shoes. 15.  Lifting Picture a strong powerful weightlifter at the World Weightlifting Competition. He lifts a heavy barbell off the floor with all of his strength. You see the huge steel weights on each end of the barbell. Then you look more closely, and notice that, instead of huge steel weights, on each end of the barbell is actually ITEM #15. 16.  Licking You and your dear friend are at the State Fair. You have just purchased some delicious pink Cotton Candy. As you lick on its sweet coating, you look closely, and see, to your surprise, that you are actually holding in your hand and licking ITEM #16. Yuck! Smell it. Feel its surface texture. Taste it on your tongue. 17.  Leavening You are baking a loaf of delicious homemade bread. You look through the glass oven panel at the bread as it is baking in the hot oven. As the bread begins to rise, you can smell the wonderful yeast odor. And you see, "popping" out of the bread, dozens of tiny yeast bubbles. You look more closely, and see that each yeast bubble is actually ITEM #17. 18.  Waiting Picture a wife waiting with her children in an old wood cabin, high in the cold mountains, for her husband to come home. He is late. It is already dark outside. She has an oil lamp burning brightly in a small high window, shining out onto the path. Then she notices the lamp light shining on her husband, who is now walking down the path. She looks more closely, and sees that the lamp light is actually shining on ITEM #18. See the ITEM #18, with tiny arms and legs, skipping merrily down the path. 19.  Pining A lady is yearning for her lover to return. She is weeping. Her tears are falling down onto a piece of jewelry on her lovely blue dress. You look closely, and notice that her tears are actually falling on ITEM #19. See the item being covered with her moist tears. See her tears soaking into ITEM #19. Savor her perfume in your nostrils. Taste her salty tears on your tongue. 20.  Plenty Visualize a Cornucopia (a "Horn of Plenty"). It is filled with many delicious fruits. Yummy! You turn the Cornucopia so that the end is right next to your mouth. Then, instead of sweet fruits, out pours ITEM #20, right into your mouth. Yuck! 21.  Dueling Gun Picture two men who are engaging in a "Duel to the Death". They each have a dueling pistol in their hand. They stand, back to back. Then they each step ten paces, and turn to fire their guns. You look closely, and out of the end of each gun, like toy guns, comes a small flag, attached to a wooden stick. Each small flag is waving in the breeze. And painted on each flag is a bright full color image of ITEM #21.