es out of ten, and if habitually
persisted in will greatly improve your power of voluntary recall.

[Sidenote: _Formation of Correct Memory Habits_]

Rule IV. _The instant you recollect a thing to be done, do it._

Every idea that memory thrusts into your consciousness carries with it
the impulse to act upon it. If you fail to do so, the matter may not
again occur to you, or when it does it may be too late.

_Your mental mechanism will serve you faithfully only as long as you act
upon its suggestions._

[Sidenote: _NOW!_]

This is as true of bodily habits as of business affairs. The time to act
upon an important matter that just now comes to mind is not "tomorrow"
or a "little later," but _NOW_.

What you do from moment to moment tells the story of your career. Ideas
that come to you should be compared as to their relative importance. But
do this honestly. Do not be swayed by distracting impulses that
inadvertently slip in. And having gauged their importance give free rein
at once to the impulse to do everything that should not make way for
something more important.

[Sidenote: _Persistence, Accuracy, Dispatch_]

If, for any reason, action must be deferred, fix the matter in your mind
to be called up at the proper time. Drive all other thoughts from your
consciousness. Give your whole attention to this one matter. Determine
the exact moment at which you wish it to be recalled. Then put your
whole self into the determination to remember it at precisely the right
moment. And finally, and perhaps most important of all,--

Rule V. _Have some sign or token._ This memory signal may be
anything you choose, but it must somehow be directly connected with the
hour at which the main event is to be recalled.

[Sidenote: _Memory Signs and Tokens_]

Make a business of observing the memory signs or tokens you have been
habitually using. Practice tagging those matters you wish to recall with
the labels that form a part of your mental machinery.

Make it a habit to do things when they ought to be done and in the order
in which you ought to do them. Habits like this are "paths" along which
the mind "moves," paths of least resistance to those qualities of
promptness, energy, persistence, accuracy, self-control, and so on, that
create success.

Success in business, success in life, can come only through the
formation of right habits. A right habit can be deliberately acquired
only by _doing a thing consciously until it