Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0283: Reprise: How do I improve my story-telling and visualization skills to create mnemonics?

Episode Date: April 8, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to improve story-telling and visualization skills when creating mnemonics, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Hey everyone, this is Timothy and welcome to episode 283 of Master of Memory. Today we're doing a reprise episode of episode 51 about improving the ability to create mnemonics. So some things I like about this episode are I talked about the value of using prepared mnemonic examples like those at masterofmemory.com to base your mnemonics on. And then also practicing with a small list of about 10 items using a memory palace based on your own home just to get a little bit of practice with mnemonics and to see what works or doesn't work for you. Now, there's nothing I would really add to this episode except perhaps the value of making a quicknemonics, it's important to use them to learn something that's really valuable to you, because if you do that, then it'll help motivate you to learn other things with these powerful tactics as well. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy,

and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. A reader asked in an email about improving visualization skills and storytelling abilities to help a beginner practice making mnemonics as memorable as possible. This is a really great question and I have two main suggestions for this. First, I would recommend starting by using prepared mnemonics. You can find some prepared mnemonics at masterofmemory.com slash james where we have mnemonics prepared for every verse for the whole book of James. And then you'll also find some prepared mnemonics in the Spanish course when it's open. If you go to masterofmemory.com slash Spanish, that's going to

happen there. But you can also find prepared mnemonics a lot of other places, like the book Moonwalking with Einstein. It's not so instructional, but it gives a lot of examples of mnemonics that people use to make things memorable. But the point is to get an idea of what kind of stories and images make things memorable, and that will help you to create those kinds of stories on your own. The second suggestion is after that point, you'll want to experiment with yourself and practice. I recommend choosing a list of just 10 things that you'd like to memorize, like the first 10 US presidents, or 10 of the monarchs of England, or maybe 10 Pulitzer Prize winning novels, or something else. And then you'll want to see how quickly you can memorize them using your own stories in a memory palace based on 10 locations in your own home. This is a very simple way to start. You're

just listing 10 things and memorizing them. And that'll just give you really quick feedback. If there's one story that doesn't work, you'll have to see if you can figure out why. And then you can use that information to improve your storytelling and your visualization in the future. So just to recap these two quick points, start with prepared mnemonics for examples of what makes this visualization easy and makes these stories memorable, and then practice with yourself giving yourself quick feedback on what it is that makes you remember better. And also keep in mind, if you choose 10 things and you have a memory palace that you'd like to use, you can just shoot me an email and I'll help you visualize these things. I'll help you come up with the stories and give you direct feedback on what kind of stories I think will work better for you.

Of course, self-experimentation is going to be the most valuable thing, but I'd be happy to give you a hand with that if you just shoot me an email and we'll make it work. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am. I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States in May. Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina, or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com.