 Most people, at least most that I've seen, use one of two techniques to memorize content before taking a test Staring at notes and flashcards. Well, the looking at your notes technique is pretty self-descriptive, right? So you look at your notes and then you look away and you look at your notes And you look away and tell what you see on your notes, it sticks in your head This takes many times and usually each gain that you have isn't that much Flashcards is a lot like staring at your notes with cards Both of these techniques have a low rate of return, so I would say it takes a lot of time You repeat these attempts many many times before you retain content. I I'm gonna make some videos here in this in this short little series of videos I will provide techniques that work a lot better. You have a much higher rate of return in other words for each attempt that you Make, you retain a lot more content if not all of it Both staring at notes and flashcards rely upon repetition frequency and short-term memory to retain content Repetition frequency and short-term memory just frankly don't work that well for memorizing content If you don't believe me think of the number of times you've used these techniques to try to remember content for an exam Think of the hours it takes before it sticks in your head And then by the way Usually dissipates within about a day and a half Your brain is the product of thousands of years of evolution and your ancestors are able to survive because they can remember the past and the Consequences of the past and moreover they can pass on what they remember to others Hence our ability to tell stories your ancestors Survive because they can remember way where they have been in sequence in order and what they have seen You're able to remember stories location and images really well It comes very naturally to you And the ability to remember stories location and images happens without flashcards or staring at notes So why bother with them? So the question is how can we use those parts of your brain that are already well-developed that don't take that much effort To memorize content the basic strategy here is to use stories location and images Which you already retain really well, but to use stories location and images and Associate that in some way with content that you want to remember for an exam in this first video I'm going to teach you the chaining image technique So with the chaining image hit technique you create images and chances are these won't be literal images of content They'll have to in some way be associated with the images of content And the reason is is because you know most of the content that you're trying to remember I Is not a concrete thing right prime numbers the history of Texas and your civil rights These are not concrete particular things You can't look at them and see them a favorite tactic of mine is to use images that when sounded out Sound similar to the content you want to remember So think of prime number right prime number What I might think of is a pile of prime rib right take a big pile of prime ribs Well, that's a number of prime ribs A number of prime ribs prime number or the right to free speech So think of somebody handing out speeches with their right hand Handing out speeches for free with the right hand the right to free speech Exactly what images you use can sometimes vary upon your personal history So I don't really have any hard and fast general rules to use I can't tell you this so it gets easier the more you practice it the more outlandish the image the better highly unusual images or Anything highly unusual sticks in your mind easier now that you have these images have them interact with each other in sequence to form a story The story doesn't have to be plausible. In fact, at least the less plausible the better They just have to interact with each other in a sequence of events try to incorporate more in the image than just sight I mean, especially have vivid colors or lights or dark or something Striking in that way, but also incorporate smells sweet smells right or staunch chasing on stench smells Textures are rough may have it the way it touches you try to incorporate all of your senses into an image For just a tiny little example. Suppose you want to remember a grocery list Well, let's just make a quick grocery list of orange juice apples and peanut butter think of a large orange But instead of just an orange right take a big straw and stick it right in the middle of that orange And then all of a sudden the orange pops up eyes. This is out Next the apple comes up and takes takes a big stroke of the juice out of that orange Now we got weird fruit cannibalism and then finally a large tub of butter just brimming over with peanuts Right just peanuts are gushing out of it a large tub of butter with peanuts falls on top of the apple Well, this is just a short little example but now this I bet this image of a you know Our orange thing out for the strong its head and a weird cannibal apple You know being hit by a tub of butter filled with peanuts. I bet that's in your head pretty well You may not forget that for the rest of the day and you may or may not be grateful for that Let's try a more complicated example, let's quickly memorize the first 10 states to join the union So the first state is Delaware So for Delaware, I thought hey Dell computer, right? So here we have a Dell computer and since it's really advanced programming this Dell computer has become aware and Looking at you right Dell aware So the next state is Pennsylvania And so, you know kind of obvious, right? Well, Pennsylvania has already got pencil in this So here's a little friendly pencil, but what's gonna do thevania part? Well, this friendly pencil actually isn't that friendly. It's a Pennsylvania from Transylvania. It's Vampire pencil Pennsylvania pencil from Transylvania, Pennsylvania Well, our little Dell computer got real scared by our vampire pencil. So through a Jersey New Jersey onto the pencil. So we've got new Jersey and That Jersey was very bright reminded our vampire pencil of the Sun and decided to take off but the Vampire pencil the pencil from Transylvania the Pennsylvania had its revenge and Got it grabbed a Georgia peach and threw it at the Jersey Georgia peach for Georgia at the Jersey And this left a big stain So now we've got Delaware Pennsylvania New Jersey and Georgia for for our state so far So this yeah, like I said this You know peach left a stain and we got to get rid of that stain Don't we and that's a nasty stain on the Jersey Well, probably the best way to do it is to cut it out now Unfortunately, I've got these scissors and that's great, but they're broken apart So I'm gonna need to connect these scissors to cut Connect to cut Connecticut Connecticut, so I've got my scissors and I've cut out my cut the Stain out of the shirt out of the Jersey. So there's the stain It's off to the side and I guess it just better get burned up the Jersey It's useless now, but now what am I gonna do with this stain? well friends fortunately got my friend smiley here and Smiley loves to chew loves to chew masses. So we're gonna give this mass to chew To smiley so master chew then they're gonna smile at you master chooses master chooses Okay, so okay, just a recap we have what we have with Delaware, okay, Pennsylvania New Jersey Georgia Connecticut and now Massachusetts Well this chewing makes our friend smiley well happy so smile is over here being real happy and since my smile is so happy My smile is gonna get married. So off to Mary land for smiley Mary land for smiley to get married Now the next state is a you know, so now we've gone for Connecticut to Mary land and the next state's a little bit tougher is South Carolina and I Struggled for a little bit to figure out some kind of silly image for South Carolina The only thing I could come up with the southern carol and southern carol. So a Christmas Carol that's sung in the south and You know, unfortunately the way my twisted mind works the only thing I can think of is Grandma got run over by a reindeer. So that's my southern carol Right southern carol for South Carolina Now the good news is you know, even though this is a really bad song It's gonna stick in your head for the rest of the day and probably gonna hate me for it This sleigh brought with it a nice little gift and a ham for New Hampshire a nice tasty ham for New Hampshire a New ham for New Hampshire and so now we can get rid of that awful Carol Now with a ham. That's a really big ham So we probably need somebody to come over and help us eat this ham. Well, we got another Version of smiley here This smiley has a furry chin Furry chin for Virginia, man, this is a bit of a tough one to furry chin for vision for Virginia Furry chin virgin Virginia, right? So those are the first 10 states So just a quick recap First state is Delaware. So I have my Dell computer. That's aware of you and the next state is Pennsylvania We had the pencil from Transylvania and that scares away the Delaware computer But the Dell computer has this revenge and throws a new Jersey for New Jersey onto the pencil and that scares away the vampire pencil the pencil from Transylvania and it throws a Georgia peach onto the Jersey Which leaves a big stain on on the Jersey itself But we got to get rid of that stain So to do that, we're gonna cut it out We got our pieces of the scissors and we connect to cut Connecticut the shirt And that leaves a nice big mass of stained shirt off to the side. So we're brought up a shirt We got now we got for this mass. We're gonna get it chewed up by smiley Massachusetts, so my smiley takes the mass and starts chewing Massachusetts Next up I said smiley's well happy smiley's gonna get married so off to Mary land for smiley and then we unfortunately sing a southern Christmas Carol Southern Carol grandma got run over by a reindeer South South Carolina for after Maryland But that leaves off a nice big ham for New Hampshire and we're gonna have our furry chin friend Virginia Furry chin Virginia to help us eat the ham This look at you started and it provides good practice. I'll teach you an even more effective technique in the next video