The fastest way to improve working memory is to use it better: chunk information into groups, turn positions into shapes, repeat items in your head, keep only a short queue of what matters and write the rest down. Sleep and lower stress protect it. Training games make you better mainly at the game you train.
What is working memory?
Working memory is the small mental workspace that holds information for a few seconds while you use it. You rely on it when you keep a phone number in mind long enough to dial it, follow spoken directions or add up a bill without paper.
Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch described it in 1974 as a system with separate parts. The phonological loop holds sounds and words, which is the voice you hear when you repeat something under your breath. The visuospatial sketchpad holds images and locations, and a central executive decides what gets attention and what gets dropped. In 2000 Baddeley added a fourth part, the episodic buffer, which links the pieces into one episode.
The space is small. A common estimate, from Nelson Cowan's 2001 review, is about four chunks at once for an adult. You can't stretch that number much, but you can make each chunk carry more, which is what most of the methods below do.
How do you improve working memory?
You improve it in daily life by giving it less to hold and packing what it holds into fewer, bigger units. Here are the seven methods in this article and what each one changes.
- Chunking: packs several items into one unit. Try it on phone numbers and codes.
- Grouping into shapes: turns scattered positions into one pattern. Try it on seating plans and grids.
- Saying it in your head: keeps words alive in the phonological loop. Try it on names and directions.
- Keeping a short queue: holds only the last few items and updates. Try it on conversations and lists.
- Writing it down: moves load out of your head. Try it on multi-step tasks.
- Sleeping enough and lowering stress: protects the capacity you already have. Do it every day.
- Practice at the edge: builds skill on a specific task. Try it on n-back and grid recall.
Which working memory exercises can you try today?
Each technique below comes with an example you can test in a minute. Try the example once without the technique, then once with it, and notice the difference.
1. Chunk information into groups
Chunking means grouping separate items into a unit you already know. Read this string once, look away and repeat it: F B I B B C N A S A.
Ten separate letters are more than most people can hold. Now read it as FBI, BBC, NASA. That's three chunks, and you will probably get it on the first try.
Numbers work the same way. 0547318826 is ten digits, while 054 731 88 26 is four groups, and "88" is easy to hold because it repeats. When someone reads you a code, ask them to say it in pairs or threes.
2. Group positions into shapes
For anything spatial, look for a shape instead of memorising points. Picture a 3×3 grid where the top-left, middle-left and bottom-left squares light up, plus the bottom-middle one.
Held as four positions, that pattern fills your workspace. Seen as the letter L, it takes one slot. Lines, corners, diagonals and letters all work.
You can practise this on the free visual memory test: tiles light up for about a second and you tap them back, with one more tile each level. By level 6 you are holding 8 positions from a single look, and grouping is the only way most people get there.
3. Say it in your head
Naming things puts them in the phonological loop, where you can keep them fresh by repeating them. If you get directions such as "left at the bakery, second right, number 14", say the short version to yourself: "bakery left, second right, fourteen".
This also helps with visual material. Naming tiles as "top-left, centre, bottom-right" while they are lit gives you a spoken copy next to the picture. Keep the words short, because the loop holds only a brief stretch of speech.
4. Keep a short queue
When information keeps arriving, hold only the last few items and drop the oldest when a new one comes in. In a meeting where three people give updates, keep a running queue of their three action points rather than trying to remember every sentence.
Mental arithmetic shows the same habit. To add 47 and 38, take 40 plus 30 to get 70, then 7 plus 8 to get 15, then combine them to get 85. At each step you hold one running total and let the earlier pieces go.
Separate the two jobs: first compare or use the new item, then update the queue. Doing both at once is where most slips happen. The dual n-back test trains exactly this, since you track a stream of squares and letters and press when one matches the item N steps back.
5. Write it down
Writing things down is the most reliable way to stop losing information, because you no longer need to hold it at all. A shopping list, a sticky note with the parking level or a scratch line for a sum each free a slot for thinking.
Use this when the stakes are real: medication times, steps in a recipe, a list of things to raise with a doctor. Save your working memory for the part of the task that needs judgement.
6. Sleep enough and lower stress
Sleep and stress change how much of your working memory is available on a given day. After a short night, you will probably find mental arithmetic and multi-step instructions harder, and the methods above take more effort.
Worry costs space too. A nagging thought occupies a slot, leaving less room for the task in front of you. Writing the worry down, a few slow breaths before a demanding task and a regular sleep schedule are small, practical ways to get that space back.
7. Practise at the edge of your ability
Practice on a working memory task makes you better at that task, especially when the difficulty sits just above where you are comfortable. On our dual n-back test, move up a level once you pass about 80% accuracy and step down below about 50%.
Keep sessions short and regular. A few rounds a day at a level that feels hard but possible will move your scores more than one long sitting a week.
Do brain-training games improve working memory?
Brain-training games improve the trained task, and the gains spread to other working memory tasks far less.
A 2013 meta-analysis by Monica Melby-Lervåg and Charles Hulme pooled 23 studies of working memory training. Trained people improved on tasks close to the training, but the gains were short-lived, and the authors found no evidence of transfer to verbal ability, word decoding or arithmetic. A 2017 meta-analysis of n-back training by Anna Soveri and colleagues found a large effect on untrained versions of the n-back task and small effects on other working memory tasks, cognitive control and fluid intelligence.
So treat games as practice for a specific skill, and pair them with the techniques above, which you can use anywhere. That's why each game in Omni Brain teaches a named technique, such as grouping cells into shapes or keeping a short queue, and why our science page labels most memory games "B, core process": gains inside the task are solid, carry-over is debated.
How long does it take to improve working memory?
Techniques work the first time you use them: chunking FBI BBC NASA helps on your first attempt. Scores on a trained game usually climb over days to weeks of regular practice. Training studies on n-back typically ran for several weeks, with sessions of about 20 to 25 minutes.
Questions about working memory
What is the difference between working memory and short-term memory? Short-term memory holds information for a few seconds. Working memory holds it and lets you work with it: compare, reorder or calculate. Repeating a phone number uses short-term memory, and adding up a bill in your head uses working memory.
What are good working memory exercises for adults? Chunking long numbers, naming positions in your head and keeping a short queue during conversations all work in daily life. For focused practice, try the free dual n-back and visual memory test in your browser. Start at a level you can pass and move up as your accuracy rises.
Can you increase working memory capacity? The raw number of slots, about four chunks for most adults, is hard to change. What you can change is how much each slot holds and how much you ask it to hold. Chunking, shapes and writing things down do both.
Does dual n-back improve working memory? It improves your n-back score and, to a smaller degree, related working memory tasks. Whether it raises intelligence is still debated, and well-controlled studies show small or no effects. Use it as practice for holding and updating information, and read Does dual n-back work? for the full research picture.
Do sleep and stress affect working memory? Yes. A short night and a busy, worried mind both leave less room for the task in front of you. Regular sleep and writing worries down are simple ways to protect what you have.
Train working memory in a few minutes a day
Omni Brain has 82 short games across eight skills, including memory, and each one teaches a technique you can use outside the app. The free plan gives you a daily workout of three games in about five minutes, with no ads. Download Omni Brain or see what Premium adds on the pricing page.