Storing Your Grocery List

Quick Win

Memory chunking can help break a list into easier-to-remember chunks.

Try This Today

• Organize by type. One simple approach is to organize your list by food type. Apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, spinach, milk and cheese could be chunked into three groups: fruits, vegetables and dairy. Instead of trying to memorize all the items, remember you need three fruits, two vegetables and two dairy products.
• Go by section. Sometimes, it makes more sense to chunk items based on where they are found at the market. Maybe your list has nine items, but they’re found in three sections of the store: personal care, the bread aisle and the frozen foods section. Separate your list according to those sections: toothpaste, face wash, razor blades; bagels, hot dog buns; frozen blueberries, spinach, peas, corn.
• Get creative. As you see yourself making progress, look for new and creative ways to chunk your grocery list. Can you form a word using the first letters of each item on your list? For example, mangoes, eggs, laundry detergent, tea and salt can be chunked into one word: MELTS. You can also chunk words according to length (eggs-milk-rice, bread-pears-steak, cereal-butter-cheese) and alphabetizing items (apples-avocados-almonds, broccoli-bread-bananas, carrots-cheese-coffee).

Why

Memory chunking is a memorization technique that groups similar bits of information to make them easier to remember. Chunking helped people remember lists of words and letters in a study published in Psychology and Aging in 2026. In a series of experiments, researchers compared younger and older adults, generally ages 18-35 and 65+ and found that both groups improved at about the same rate at recalling repeated lists of words and letters.