You can make any message -- be it an email, a presentation, or a speech -- memorable by tying all of your details to a central idea, sparking curiosity with questions, and using a "callback" to reference an earlier story or example to close the loop, writes Charan Ranganath, a professor at the Center for Neuroscience and Department of Psychology. "During the callback, we saw greater activation of the brain circuitry involved in forming new memories, and the callback helped our subjects retain more information from the story," Ranganath suggests.

Put it into practice: Concrete details that can paint a picture in the mind of your listener are more memorable than abstract concepts, Ranganath writes. "Research shows that people find it harder to memorize an abstract concept like 'justice' than something that we can easily visualize or imagine, like, 'gavel.'"