Life’s Numbers Can Add Up to a Real Memory Snarl

Quick, what was your phone number when you were a kid?

Still remember it, huh? Well, how about the PIN for your bank card? How about your fax at home? At the office? Your Internet password? Your office computer password? The PIN number for your cellular phone? Your full ZIP code? The new area codes in your state? Your e-mail address?

With the proliferation of numbers nowadays, many of us are suffering digital overload.

Ask anyone who’s ever drawn a blank at a gym locker, punched in the wrong PIN number at an ATM or dialed up a stranger where a friend has been for many years.

For years, Michelle Bizier of Boston knew her driver’s license number by heart because it was the same as her Social Security number. Then, a few years ago, the idea of having such a vital number on her license made her nervous, so she changed it.

Everything was fine until the day she needed to write a check but didn’t have her license with her and couldn’t recall the new nine-digit number.

“I was just trying to buy some things for the house, but they wouldn’t let me write a check,” she recalled. “It was embarrassing. Everyone in line behind me was moving from foot to foot. So I had to go to the bank machine.”

Even John Lisman, a professor who studies memory at Brandeis University’s Volen National Center for Complex Systems, admits that he sometimes has trouble retrieving life’s many series of letters or numbers on command.

The explosion of cellular phones, fax machines, pagers and computers has created the need for so many numbers. The Federal Communications Commission says there will be 23 new area codes by the end of the year.

Ken McGlothin, a “big Boston sports fan” as evidenced by his Red Sox cap, enlists athletes’ jersey numbers to keep things straight. He uses combinations of Bobby Orr, Larry Bird and Kevin McHale for his banking. He was lucky in that he was able to choose his ATM code; many are assigned by the bank.

The sports method works for Brian Wallace of Melrose. “My buddy’s phone number is 5688: Lawrence Taylor, Hart Lee Dykes,” he demonstrated.

Joe Gilmore of East Boston uses the same code all the time. “One steady number, that’s the easiest way in the world,” he said.

Easiest? Yes. But safe? No, said Gerald Isaacson, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s data security manager.

“People out there are trying to crack codes,” he said. “There is a need, I think, to maintain different access-control numbers, passwords, PIN numbers and the like because if you lose one you don’t lose everything.”

Isaacson acknowledged that can be hard on the brain: “There are times that I’ve used a billboard once in a blue moon . . . and I forget [the password] because it’s been two years since I’ve used it.”

Write down the passwords if necessary, he said. Just don’t make it obvious, such as carrying an ATM access number in the same wallet as the card.

Isaacson also warned computer users to avoid real names or words as sign-ins. A “cracker” program can zip through the whole dictionary in seconds. It’s best to use a combination of letters, numbers and punctuation marks, he said. And the longer the password, the harder it is to crack.

People also should avoid passwords that use their child’s birthday or any other number, name or word that someone who knows them also might know, said Kim King of the Internet software provider Open Market Inc.

“Birthdays? Definitely not a good idea,” King said. “The general rule of thumb is to take a common word that can be translated into numbers and letters--like ‘ball gown’ but turn it into ‘ball8own.’ That way, it will mean nothing to anyone else and you can remember it.”

Memory guru Harry Lorayne, who has written 17 books on the topic and has his own late-night TV infomercial, has another method--and he says the last thing anyone should do to remember a telephone number is to write it down.

He prefers to assign each of the ten digits to a major consonant sound and then form unforgettable images. For example, he links 1 to T, 2 to N, 3 to M, 4 to R, 5 to L, 6 to J, 7 to K, 8 to F, V to PH, 9 to P and zero to Z. The result for say, the number 147, would be T-R-K, or “truck.”