You Will Be Memorizing Things

Here's how you memorize things:

• Tell yourself you will do it. Don't try to find tricks or easy ways out of it, just sit down and do it. • Write what you want to memorize on some index cards. Put one half of what you need to learn on one side, then another half on the other side.
• Every day for about 15-30 minutes, drill yourself on the index cards, trying to recall each one. Put any cards you don't get right into a different pile, just drill those cards until you get bored, then try the whole deck and see if you improve.

• Before you go to bed, drill just the cards you got wrong for about 5 minutes, then go to sleep. There are other techniques, like you can write what you need to learn on a sheet of paper, laminate it, then stick it to the wall of your shower. While you're bathing, drill the knowledge without looking, and when you get stuck glance at it to refresh your memory. If you do this every day, you should be able to memorize most things I tell you to memorize in about a week to a month. Once you do, nearly everything else becomes easier and intuitive, which is the purpose of memorization. It's not to teach you abstract concepts but rather to ingrain the basics so that they are intuitive and you don't have to think about them. Once you've memorized these basics they stop being speed bumps preventing you from learning more advanced abstract concepts.