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Top 10 Memory Hacks

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21 pointsantiform7 comments

If anyone is interested in spaced repetition software (SRS) like SuperMemo, there are two open source projects that are very similar:

-Mnemosyne (http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/)

-Anki (http://www.ichi2.net/anki/)

I've been using Mnemosyne for a week now, ever since the article in Wired about SRS (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=170542). I've found Mnemosyne to be easy to use and very effective at helping to memorize things. I use it primarily for language learning (Spanish), but I've also used it for learning the syntax of programming commands, dates of important historical events, and identifying the countries in Europe and Africa on a map.

Anki is awesome. I heard about it a week or so ago here, and have gotten though the JLPT 2 words (1300 of 'em) with 90% retention in about a week. I really wish I used flashcards when I was living in Japan, instead of my lazy-ass "i'll learn it from hearing other people" technique. (That worked, but not nearly as well as Anki.)

Now I just need to find a JLPT 1 word list :)

You might find this page helpful: http://www.manythings.org/japanese/jlpt/

It contains a list cross matched with EDICT

Derren Brown's book, 'Tricks of the Mind', has an interesting section on memory:

http://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Mind-Derren-Brown/dp/1905026358...

He discusses the 'loci system', 'memory palaces', and 'peg system':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_peg_system

I haven't tried them out myself yet.

It takes a lot of practice to really get the hang of these systems. Is anybody here a regular user of any systematic memory technique?

I know the Major Method but only used it once or twice. The encoding step is by far the largest bottleneck; I intend to write an application to assist learning the MM, but I'm occupied with another related application atm :-)

Here's a very simple method I use to make sure I leave the house with everything I need: I have a special number (say, 4), and when I go out my belongings need to add up to that. That would be keys, wallet, camera, phone. If I have other things I adjust my number accordingly. Maybe it's overly simple, but I'm pretty sure some people forget their phones once in a while.

for the Major Method, there is an application helping with the encoding step:

http://www.phoneticmnemonic.com/

(it works quite good, but only on short numbers up to 3 digits, so you have to split longer numbers 'manually', which isn't so bad IMO). It's also available as a FF extension (didn't test it myself).

Shameless plug. I just finished writing a game that supposedly will improve your short-term memory: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=177991

It's based on that paper about fluid intelligence: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176264

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