No, really. How do you
remember things? Do they just stick like
post-it notes to your
refrigerator of recollection, or do you have mental
filing cabinets where everything gets stored
alphabetically, or what?
I myself have an awkward, reverse-polish sort of way of storing things in my head. I need to construct a kind of framework for whatever the fact in question pertains to -- a larger structure, like a mental Christmas tree that I can hang the ornaments of data onto. Of course, this makes it difficult when I'm being presented with a lot of new information at once and I have to construct my mnemonic scaffolding in a hurry, before the facts themselves fall completely out of my short-term memory. Co-workers of mine say they can see my face screw up when I'm being presented with a new project, and it's because I need to somehow visualize the project as a whole thing, from beginning to end, before I can organize my particular tasks within it.
Maybe it's an ADD thing, I dunno. I'd just always assumed that everyone's brain worked this way, and that some were just more efficient at it than others.