If you need to remember something arbitrary for a short period of time, try repeating it aloud and remembering the sound of saying it instead of trying to remember it directly.
Not sure why it works, but it does. Maybe because there's more bits of information to latch onto with how you habitually pronounce certain words/letters/numbers and the timing of syllables? Logically remembering the sound of reading it in your head (if you have an inner voice) should have the same effect, but it doesn't, at least not for me.
Regardless, it's handy for phone numbers, authentication codes, and terse instructions.
I use it for short lists as well. For a convoluted example, if I'm preoccupied and think of things I don't want to forget, such as thinking of tasks I forgot to do while in the shower, I'll condense them into a list of single keywords, say that aloud, and mentally note the length. Later when I have the chance to write it down, all I have to do is remember the length of the list and fish around for any of the tasks, which will prompt the memory of the sound of the list, and thus I will have remembered the whole list without needing to actively remember anything more specific than the existence of a list with a certain length.
The recall rate isn't perfect, but it's much higher than attempting to directly remember the entire list for several minutes while preoccupied.
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Nightly Notes
My scratch notes must look incoherent from the outside, it's all keywords without connections. There's a whole other set of tricks for setting consistent keywords, but that's a post for another day.
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