Lecture #10: How to Memorize Anything - EFFICIENTLY

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This is the tenth lecture in a series of lectures, intended for first-year college and university students, loosely around the topic of "How to Do Well in College". But the information in this video may be more widely useful. There are two methods that allow people to efficiently memorize things: mnemonic cues and spaced repetition. In this video I explain how to use each of these.

[BeSmarterFaster]

As someone who, for decades, has performed memory feats in front of large audiences, I agree with you professor Kaplan. A word I like much better than "association" is the word "Connection". The mind is a connecting machine. We connect new information to that which we already know. I also really liked the fact that you talked about using index cards as flash cards. I teach the same thing. Another reason that it's such a powerful memory aid is that the act of handwriting notes forces a person to use more of their 5 senses, thus strengthening the neural pathways (synapse) inside the brain. Thank you for your clear message.

[mion]

Key Takeaways:

1. Mnemonic Cues - make a story that ties in with memorization. Intuition is like an effective program and our cognition is our means of writing the program. By putting in the work to make a relationship/correlation, you foster memorization.

2. Spaced Repetition and Active Recall - Although active recall was not mentioned in this video, there's a plethora of research proving active recall combined with spaced repetition is one of the best ways to learn. Spaced repetition increase the intervals of time between learning attempts and we learn things more efficiently. Active recall can be combined with looking through your flashcards by attempting to answer the question first (audibly or in your head) before flipping the card. Online software like Anki is used to help with this process by giving you flashcards based on how difficult/easy the card was and when the last "learning attempt" occurred. I open Anki every morning and make flashcards every night.

[ Note: It's okay to use flashcards made online from similar topics you are studying, however there is a great benefit to taking time to make your own cards. 1) It allows you more time to process and think through the material you're trying to memorize/study 2) You choose directly what you want to put in your deck of cards (as opposed to finding a card in a deck that's not important or the deck is missing important study material) ]

I have been taking notes throughout the whole playlist and look forward to trying to integrate this into my educational life. I wish I had seen this when I first began college - I'm currently facing my first B, which has made me re-think my studying strategies, because being "naturally" smart does not work in college.

[maxncheese]

I've always heard of people memorizing things by using their imagination or imagery, but when you incorporated it with the flashcards it genuinely blew my mind. I never thought of combining the two. It's going to be a real change to my studying, thanks.

[pinecone]

Two more things I’d add:

1. Put multiple related questions on one card
2. Never look at the answer of the card until you’re sure you can not answer the question

We understand information relative to what we already know (schemas) and we chunk stuff together.

So what I’ll do is make notecards with multiple questions all relating to the same topic.

If I’m in an intro to ethics, instead of making three cards on (1) the definition of utilitarianism, (2) the ‘founders’ of utilitariansim, and (3) objections to it, I’ll just make one card with three questions.

Then, the next card will move onto Kant’s deontological ethics.

This has all the advantages of before + the ability to group information relative to what you already know and what you are learning—instead of learning it in isolation.

One last thing—it saves 3x-4x notecards

And about the second point, we learn much much much better through active recall (jogging your memory) than simply seeing the answers. We remember things by forcing our brains (or our minds…🧐) to recall the information.

It’s like going to a gym. You want to gain muscle, lift heavy. You want to remember, try to remember things without looking at the answer.

[uraniumu]

I am a lifelong learner. You are without a doubt the most astute teacher I have ever been exposed to especially how to take notes and how to remember what you read. Thank you SO much!

[Janellle]

I’m back here after 4 years…. I forgot how to remebr

[HonestKeyboard]

I just found out about this guy and I can honestly say, there is a level of stress that has gone down just listening to him break down the methods to memorize. I always thought I had an issue, I always thought I wasn't smart enough and despite doing other things to help change that internal narrative, Jeff's information and ease of explanation are such welcomed assets in my attempt to learn Spanish and other relevant knowledge. Cheers!

[kingbeauregard]

For years, I tried off and on to learn Morse Code, but I'd get to around "F" and give up because I couldn't keep the dots and dashes straight. But someone recommended that I should associate each letter with a word that has the same cadence, and doing that, I had all the letters memorized in no time. For example, Morse Code for "A" is dot-dash, which has the same rhythm as "ahoy". So the letter equivalences I came up with are: ahoy, Bob Balaban, Casablanca, dog catcher, eat, Fibonacci, green bean soup, hootenanny, icky, Jafar has lice, kill the lights, Lothario, Morse Code, noisy, Omaha, protect my butt, quick find a towel, revolver, Sierra, tea, uniform, vitamin D, Wakanda, X marks the spot, you're a big jerk, Zagnut City.

[alexialorentz]

I did this [mnemonic cues] to memorize the top 200 medications prescribed in 2013 for pharmacy tech school.
I still remember some of the brand/generic combos because of the stories.

I used spaced repetition for a lot of math through school.

[hiwayshoes]

I like using telephone numbers to remember dates. For example, the American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865. The student uses their own phone number and changes the last 4 numbers to the date they need: XXX-XXX-1861 and XXX-XXX-1865. I’ve seen this work, and I’ll say these methods you’ve outlined should begin much earlier than college. I’m an educator and I very much appreciate your videos… Cheers!

[paladinsorcerer]

I can offer up another method that worked really well for me in my software engineering course. I memorized the list of the names of design patterns (dp) by assigning a letter to each name, where each letter was just the first letter of the name itself. So for the Builder dp I abbreviated it to "B", etc. Then I grouped the letter abbreviations together into acronyms of around 5 letters per group, effectively chunking them. Each acronym corresponded to the 3 categories of dps (Creational, Structural, Behavioral). Then I used space repetition to remember the acronyms, and then I used spaced repetition to remember what the abbreviations meant in each acronym. So for example: ABFPS (Creational), stands for "[A]bstract factory", "[B]uilder", "[F]actory method", "[P]rototype", "[S]ingleton". The whole list is ABFPS, ABCDFFP, CCII-MMO-SSTV. I also assigned mnemonic cues to the groups, where it helped me to think about how the second group starts with ABCD, and ends with double F's. Also it helped me to see that in the third group, it had sub-groups, and it had repeating letters: CC, MM, SS. I also found that this approach using acronyms works for remembering a list of sentences, where you assign a single letter to each sentence, and create an acronym for the list. Then I used spaced repetition to remember the sentences by first recalling the abbreviation, then recalling what each letter in the abbreviation meant. So for example "Adding more people to a project increases the time to complete the project", a project management concept. I would pick the most important word in the sentence (mnemonic cue), like "people", abbreviate it to "P", and combine that with other abbreviations into an acronym. So for instance, for a list of 4 related sentences, you might have: PINE. I would use spaced repetition to remember the acronym, and I would use spaced repetition to remember the abbreviated sentences. To test myself, I made a sheet of just the lists of acronyms, and I would use it to quiz myself about what each stood for. When I got good at it, I could even remember the acronyms without first prompting myself using the sheet. I have only ever used this approach to study for college exams. I am not sure how effective this is for remembering something longer term, but I think that one could continue quizing yourself after a course is completed in order to achieve long term recall.

[emilycampbell]

This is honestly just how my brain works, I make stories for things and I don't even have to think about it. But using it for studying? I have never thought of that- it's absolutely brilliant! And by the way, I got both of the Korean words correct

[AmazingEventsservice-kevv]

This is such a wonderful concept. I didn't know this thing had a name. This is how I have learnt to memorize all my life, right to Postgraduate. It is so nice, seeing this video. My method of memorizing wasn't a secret at all. It's a concept. Wow. Great job !

[phoenixrising]

This is a fabulous way to learn. My daughter struggles with remembering what she studied and uses index cards all the time. But still struggles due to her learning disability. This is soooo awesome! I'm gonna share this with her. Thank you for sharing your wisdom on how to remember things. This is super cool!

[phredro]

A strange thing happened after I fell from a ladder head first onto a concrete patio . That night I happened to see an article about the constant pi. It had listed the first 100 digits. I moved on but later on I found myself recalling the first 50 digits. I went back to that article to check if my recall was accurate. I found I was able to recall the 100 digits in a few minutes.
This went on for a few days and I built my memory of pi to 1000 digits with no effort. However, this gift from a knock on the head began to fade and fade quickly. In just a few days my recall had faded to the first 12 digits. My recall ability is now back to where it was before the fall. It was fun while it lasted!

[elenafoleyfoley]

I used Mnenomic without realising it when I was learning origin and insertion of muscles in Anatomy, that is pretty cool 😎 Thankyou 🌻

[DamienShyne]

I learn SOOO much from this series! The pop quizzes are brilliant and I wish I had you as a prof way back when. Your students are very fortunate! Thank you!

[AressaKeter]

Mnemonic cues definitely work in my experience. I remember studying basic networking a few years ago, and was taught the mnemonic cue "All People Seem To Need Data Processing" which helped me learn the Application(7), Presentation(6), Session(5), Transport(4), Network(3), Data Link(2), and Physical(1) Layers of the OSI Model.

[kuupinenuzagl]

You are an amazing teacher. Keep it up!

[TheCompleteGuitarist]

re: spaced repitition, you could always read a book that contains the words you need to learn. Reading in Spanish massively accelarated my comprehension and contextualized the language far better than a ton of 'flash' cards would have. I get random reoccurences of words, the variation of which is more stimulating than anticipating their arrival at some point.

To be honest, reading a story (or atleast something meaningful) brings the two concepts together.