0:00 If you want to memorize information
0:02 fast, and I mean, who wouldn't? You need
0:04 more than hope, you need proven
0:07 techniques that you'll learn about in
0:09 this video, each of which have been
0:11 tested in the real world. And if you're
0:14 listening on the Magnetic Mary method
0:15 podcast, welcome. And if you're new, you
0:18 might be thinking, who am I to talk
0:20 about this so authoritatively? Well, as
0:22 someone who's trained memory
0:23 competitors, I've taught university
0:25 students of many, many topics all on the
0:28 strength of having explored the depths
0:30 of ancient and modern memory techniques
0:33 and memory science. I've not only used
0:35 these techniques myself to accomplish
0:37 big goals, but I've just answered just
0:39 about every question that I can imagine
0:41 about how to increase memorization
0:44 speed. I've also given hundreds of
0:46 demonstrations of how fast I can use
0:48 these techniques. I'm certainly not the
0:50 fastest, but I have talked with many of
0:53 the people who are the fastest, and so I
0:56 can share those insights with you
0:58 because a lot of those people are busy
0:59 and they're not exactly passionate about
1:01 teaching you how to develop long-term
1:04 retention, at least not as passionate as
1:06 I am. So, if you're ready for the no
1:08 fluff, no gimmicks answer to how to
1:10 memorize anything faster, let's dive in.
1:13 This is Dr. Anthony Metivier from
1:15 magneticmemory method.com. Hit that
1:17 thumbs up. Get subscribed if you're new
1:18 here. And here's the thing. If you want
1:20 to memorize fast, above all, you have to
1:23 learn the most powerful memory technique
1:25 ever invented. I don't know of an
1:27 exception to this rule. So, that's where
1:29 we're going to start. I want you to
1:31 embrace the memory palace technique. And
1:34 I want you to consider doing it even if
1:36 you don't like it, even if you don't
1:38 think it'll work. And there's one simple
1:40 reason why. I don't like it either.
1:42 Okay? I don't like a lot of things in
1:45 this world. But at the end of the day,
1:47 the like dislike monster does not rule
1:49 me. And everything gets faster once you
1:52 commit to using proper memory palaces
1:55 correctly. It's a discipline. You don't
1:58 have to like it. And the way it works
2:00 basically is that all information is
2:02 spatial and all information can be laid
2:06 out in space. Just think of a book.
2:08 That's what it is. It's a memory palace.
2:10 All information is spatial. Every letter
2:12 has a spatial characteristic. And all of
2:15 those letters are laid out in space. And
2:18 probably part of the design of books is
2:20 just based on how that people used space
2:24 to help them remember things in the
2:26 ancient world of memory techniques. So
2:29 in the Aboriginal tradition, for
2:30 example, song lines, they would have
2:33 songs that were linked to particular
2:35 areas and the content of the songs would
2:38 help them remember which po plants were
2:40 poisonous, which were healthy. And then
2:42 when a drought came and they couldn't
2:44 exactly see any foilage to find their
2:48 way back to where they needed to go to
2:49 find the good stuff, well, they could
2:51 study the landscape and remember the
2:52 songs and you know, things of that
2:55 nature. I don't think we know nearly
2:57 enough about how it all worked, but
2:58 nonetheless, it's in the tradition and
3:01 it is the proof that the information is
3:03 spatial and in space. So noticing what
3:06 the plants look like involves a spatial
3:09 recognition and knowing where they are
3:12 involves spatial memory. And scientists
3:14 have shown that the use of roots to help
3:18 you remember is the ultimate path to
3:21 superior memory. And you can read the
3:24 study yourself, but I would encourage
3:26 you to just get started with the
3:28 technique immediately. And here's how.
3:30 Select a familiar location such as your
3:32 home or your workplace. Identify
3:34 distinct areas and craft a clear and
3:37 logical mental journey through the
3:40 location. Assign what you want to
3:42 remember along the journey and pair each
3:44 item with an appropriate pneummonic
3:47 device, what I call magnetic imagery. So
3:51 that's a lot, but let me just give you a
3:53 quick example. If I need to memorize a
3:55 name like Peter Burke, and he's an
3:58 author of this book right here, the
4:00 polymath, which is a very good book that
4:01 I recommend, Peter Burke, I can think
4:04 about Peter Pan, and I can have burrs
4:09 attached to his leg. And now that's in
4:12 this space right in front of my
4:13 bookshelf. I think back to the
4:15 bookshelf, and I think about Peter Pan
4:17 struggling to tear burrs off his pants.
4:19 And you can increase your memorization
4:22 speed just by simply developing memory
4:26 palaces properly in a well-formed way
4:28 and then learning to train your mind to
4:30 come up with those associations very
4:33 very quickly. If you ever want to see me
4:35 do this, I did a case study about using
4:37 memory techniques while listening to
4:39 subliminals for better memory. They
4:42 actually reduced my speed of encoding in
4:45 memory palaces. But you'll see the proof
4:47 of concept because my five minute record
4:50 is not bad for someone who doesn't
4:52 practice that much with just random
4:53 words. I normally study Sanskrit or
4:56 names of authors and the book titles and
4:57 so on. So you can see how it all works.
5:00 You can see me do it in that
5:01 demonstration and it's really really fun
5:04 and powerful. And the key to get into
5:06 our second point is to yes watch
5:09 examples of people doing it, but put in
5:12 the time to design your own pneummonic
5:14 tools by understanding the theory. From
5:17 crafting catchy tunes to using rhymes to
5:20 help you remember to assigning
5:23 associations like I just shared with
5:24 Peter Pan pulling burrs off his pants.
5:27 This is how you train and you're going
5:30 to get faster if you put aside too many
5:33 examples and you learn the various
5:36 techniques that we use to derive those
5:39 examples very very quickly because I'm
5:41 using a strategy and in this case the
5:43 strategy is what is like Peter and it
5:47 turns out there's lots of Peters that
5:48 are like Peter but if it's a new word
5:51 that you don't know that you are trying
5:54 to learn then you still use the same
5:57 principle but like being like like so
6:01 what I mean by that is if it's a word
6:03 like inantio droia which means the
6:06 tendency of things to turn into its
6:08 opposite I'm going to think about what
6:10 is like ent right and there used to be a
6:13 band called extreme noise terror and you
6:16 know this is why the theory matters
6:18 because you might be thinking I don't
6:19 know this band at all uh there's other
6:21 things like entertainer so you could
6:23 think of enya as an entertainer and more
6:26 people will probably know Enya than
6:28 extreme noise terror. But the point is
6:30 is that inantio dia has this e n and
6:35 then a hard t sound in there. So that's
6:37 why I would get something like n t. But
6:40 anything that's en will work. That's
6:42 called the double alphabet system. And
6:45 it's a very very powerful system to have
6:48 pre-built associations that are based on
6:52 just the first letter of words but then
6:53 also the first two letters. You can
6:55 develop your systems very very simply
6:58 with a tool like a pen and a piece of
7:00 paper. And all you do is you write down
7:02 the alphabet A, AB, A C, A D, etc. And
7:07 you end up with ZZ. I don't know if
7:11 there's Oh, yes, there's Thomas Zaz. So
7:14 there's an image for ZZ if it ever comes
7:16 up that you can instantly have. So
7:19 that's your exercise. Please complete it
7:21 thoroughly, complete it well, and come
7:23 back to it again and again. And I do it
7:24 a couple times a year just to keep
7:26 fresh, just to keep sharp, to keep fast.
7:29 Now, speaking of Thomas Zaz, he's not
7:31 just an image for ZZ, but for me, he's
7:34 also an image for Zero Zero. And that
7:36 brings us to the major system. And the
7:39 major system is one of at least four
7:42 pegword systems. And if you invest your
7:45 time in developing your skills with
7:47 these systems, you're going to be faster
7:49 because they help you pre-install
7:51 associations in your memory without
7:53 having to think for more than a second
7:55 or two when you come across numbers. So
7:58 you have an alphabet system where you
8:01 have either an image for every letter of
8:03 the alphabet or every two letters of the
8:06 alphabet. And then you have a number
8:07 system for every individual digit and
8:10 every two digits. Yes, this takes a bit
8:13 of setup and there's more to be
8:14 discussed in terms of each and every
8:17 nook and cranny of these techniques, but
8:19 once you have them working, you'll be
8:22 able to memorize anything faster. That
8:24 is the answer. You want to get faster,
8:26 have memory palaces, have alphabet
8:28 systems, have number systems. The next
8:30 thing is to learn to use chunking. So,
8:33 I've already shown you a bit of chunking
8:35 with an
8:37 antio. The tendency of things to become
8:39 their opposite. Well, how chunking is a
8:43 breaking down of information into its
8:46 individual parts. So, taking just
8:50 enable. Well, now I go and I get Ant-Man
8:53 involved in there. So, there's Enya, an
8:56 entertainer, an ant. And they are
8:59 fighting over a game of tic-tac-toes and
9:02 antio. So, I've chunked down all those
9:05 various syllables and now given a kind
9:09 of story to it. All of which is taking
9:11 place in a memory palace. But it's
9:13 chunked down. Now, here's the problem.
9:16 So many students over the years have
9:18 told me, I just want it all immediately.
9:22 I want to have one image for one word.
9:24 It's got 18 syllables in it. And that's
9:26 well let me just say an all or nothing
9:30 attitude like that will slow you down.
9:33 So if you want to go faster less is
9:36 more. Break it down. Break it down.
9:38 Break it down. It's humbling to be sure
9:42 but the reality is I memorize all kinds
9:44 of difficult
9:49 things for consistent. You know this
9:53 means choose wisdom above all things
9:55 because in the choice of wisdom is the
9:57 form of goodness itself.
9:59 Expedendorm was very challenging. I had
10:02 to just start with X in order to get it
10:04 done. Now why do I do that with such joy
10:08 chunking down? Well, it's because the
10:10 scientific studies show us that chunking
10:12 as a memory strategy is one of the most
10:16 powerful things you can do to remember
10:18 more. Chunking helps you because it
10:21 strategically breaks the information
10:23 down into manageable units. I made my
10:26 TEDex talk easier and all the Sanskrit
10:28 phrases in it, all the quotes that are
10:30 in it from other people by just working
10:33 sometimes one syllable or one word at a
10:36 time. So, think of it like this. It's
10:38 the tortoise versus the hair principle.
10:41 And you know, you're going to have
10:43 surprises along the way. Sometimes you
10:44 will memorize long words with just one
10:47 image, but those things you can't rely
10:50 on. So instead of trying to memorize 154
10:53 59 87 48 55 or whatever, break it down
10:57 into little units of three, 1 545, etc.
11:02 And this method harnesses your brain's
11:04 ability to recognize patterns. And as a
11:06 result, you're going to harness greater
11:08 efficiency in your brain and ultimately
11:10 you'll move faster. So whether it's
11:12 words or numbers or any large unit of
11:16 information, you want to break it down.
11:18 Now, breaking things down through
11:20 chunking has another benefit, which is
11:23 that you'll have an easier time using
11:25 what scientists call elaborative
11:27 encoding. And what is that? Well,
11:30 basically, when I have Peter Pan over
11:33 here, I'm not just having Peter Pan over
11:36 there. I've in this case I haven't
11:38 really used junking because Peter Burke
11:40 is small enough. In the case of
11:43 remembering that name for the long term
11:45 though I'm going to encode it
11:49 elaboratively and I'm going to imagine
11:51 Peter Pan doing things according to a
11:54 model I call cavecogs which engages most
11:57 of my senses. And as scientists have
11:59 demonstrated, the benefits of
12:01 multiensory learning are profound when
12:05 you correctly apply as many senses as
12:08 you can. And I do this when I memorize
12:11 names at demonstrations. So what exactly
12:13 am I talking about with caveco? Well,
12:15 it's kinesthetic, auditory, visual,
12:17 emotional, conceptual, olfactory,
12:19 gustatory, and spatial. And within a
12:21 couple of seconds, if there's a Peter
12:23 there, I will imagine what it feels like
12:25 to be flying around as Peter Pan. I will
12:28 hear these burrs ripping off of my
12:31 pants. I will have the visual idea of
12:34 what that looks like. I'll feel some
12:35 emotions around it like being really
12:37 frustrated and then I will have the uh
12:40 conceptual mode. This is sometimes very
12:42 difficult for people to understand but
12:44 it basically comes down to thinking
12:45 about the genre. So in this case it's an
12:47 animated movie or a old fairy tale that
12:50 sort of thing. And I'll apply that just
12:52 lightly in my mind and that's part of
12:54 the elaboration. Then smells and tastes.
12:56 Well, these burrs are coming off. Some
12:58 get in the mouth, smell what they're
13:00 like. And then the size spatial is just
13:04 imagining everything big and
13:06 exaggerated, super large. Even if it's
13:08 in the small space of a bookcase, still
13:10 exaggerate the size. Make it huge. I've
13:13 used this for playing cards, for
13:14 numbers, for speeches, for poetry, for
13:17 historical dates, for the phrases that
13:19 I've used today in antio. and the one
13:23 that starts omnium exped all of this is
13:26 elaborated and you know as a quick plug
13:29 you can learn more about all this in the
13:30 magnetic memory method master class
13:32 which makes this memory strategy
13:34 something that you can do as a
13:36 discipline so much faster by taking you
13:38 through exercises and it's an intricate
13:41 approach and the key is just to engage
13:44 all of your senses and one of the
13:46 benefits of my teaching is I go into
13:49 what I learned from the ancient
13:52 tradition people like Jordano Bruno who
13:54 have 20 more of these magnetic modes.
13:57 And so that's all available anytime for
13:59 you. Now, as a tip for you, I prefer
14:02 cave cogs, but you should definitely
14:04 explore developing your own multi-ensory
14:07 model if that particular arrangement
14:09 isn't right for you. The thing is is to
14:13 study the multiensory models that are
14:15 available. Absorb them deeply through
14:17 exercises and then think about how
14:19 you're going to make your target
14:21 information stickier by not just
14:23 following someone else's system but
14:25 building your own. That's the principle
14:26 of the magnetic memory method. It is a
14:28 method by which you learn to develop
14:30 your own systems and you have guidance
14:32 in doing so. Let's talk about the next
14:34 strategy which is the idea of spaced
14:38 repetition but not just the idea the
14:40 optimization of the actual strategy
14:43 because a lot of people know about space
14:44 repetition but they don't know how to
14:45 optimize it so it will work better and
14:48 so I highly recommend that you
14:50 ultimately go through my full guide on
14:53 space repetition but the big picture
14:55 overview is this you want to first bring
14:58 the information that you've started to
14:59 memorize to mind first and then write it
15:02 down by hand. This will give you plenty
15:04 of what's called active recall. And the
15:07 studies show that this exact process
15:09 works very, very well. Bring what you've
15:11 remembered to mind, write it down. Now,
15:15 alternatively, you can perform active
15:17 recall like this from within a memory
15:19 palace. And so what you do is you bring
15:23 to mind Peter Pan and then you think
15:25 what he's doing and then you go, "Oh,
15:28 Peter Burr." And then you go, "No, that
15:29 doesn't sound quite right." But if
15:31 you've written it down at least once
15:32 first, then you can check the record. So
15:35 I always write down stuff when I'm
15:37 memorizing it in order to check the
15:39 record. And basically what I do is I
15:41 draw my memory palaces at the beginning
15:43 of my memory journal and then I test at
15:45 the back. And this is just a powerful
15:46 way to bring together the memory palace
15:48 technique and recall rehearsal. The key
15:52 is to have a space repetition strategy
15:55 so that you can just follow it. That's
15:58 going to make you faster. And then also
16:00 schedule your reviews so you don't
16:02 forget to show up and review. And then
16:05 after that, you know, just show up. And
16:08 you know, I like to schedule my reviews
16:11 manually. And if you were at my recent
16:14 workshop, I also just have trained
16:16 myself to do it automatically because I
16:17 started to remember some lines to
16:20 demonstrate how it works in the
16:22 workshop. And then later, someone was
16:24 asking me a question and I was listening
16:26 to him. But at the same time, I was
16:27 starting to do recall rehearsal or
16:29 spaced repetition. And I just said,
16:31 "Hey, by the way, I just recited these
16:35 lines and it was something like whenever
16:37 Helen feels these stresses, she
16:40 trembles. She frets." I believe that's
16:42 actually accurate. But it just starts to
16:45 happen to you is my point. And so I
16:48 think it's a tragic mistake to use
16:51 software and give it, you know, the
16:54 ability to notify you, now it's time to
16:56 rehearse. How dreadful to have a machine
17:00 remind you what you could just manually
17:03 do for yourself, to train yourself to be
17:06 your own person, to not be mechanized by
17:10 an external device, but to be
17:12 disciplinized by you training yourself
17:15 to show up. Now, the memory journal is
17:17 an external device and this does remind
17:19 me to rehearse, but it's organic, so to
17:22 speak, and it's on my body. It's
17:24 precious and it doesn't beep at me. I do
17:27 it because I want to. And I found when I
17:29 was using notifications, I would just
17:31 dismiss. It's too easy, right? Oh, you
17:34 know, Anky is telling me to rehearse
17:36 next. So, I don't want that, right? And
17:39 I think that most of us don't want and
17:41 researchers have shown that the
17:42 consequences of not getting enough
17:43 cumulative reviews which is what happens
17:46 to a lot of people when they relegate
17:47 their reviews and their schedule to
17:49 machines they've shown that it just
17:52 actually ends up reducing your
17:54 discipline reducing your memory. So
17:57 memory journal is the key and it also
17:59 stimulates reflective thinking and you
18:02 get a lot of metacognitive recognition
18:05 of what you're doing and you get clues
18:07 on how to improve your practice. Okay,
18:10 so let's recap how to remember anything
18:12 faster. You now know how to create
18:14 memory palaces. You know how to learn
18:16 the main tools of the pneummonic
18:19 association tactics like multiensory
18:22 elaboration based on chunking based on
18:25 having really really good associations
18:28 and you know about space repetition.
18:30 When you combine these approaches you're
18:32 going to rapidly enhance your ability to
18:34 memorize information quickly and
18:36 effectively and it's for most of us
18:39 going to be a lot more fun because it's
18:40 deeply engaging. Now, some people will
18:44 say, "Ah, but this just takes so much
18:45 time. I'd rather just do wrote
18:47 repetition, which will take less time."
18:48 I have seen so many examples where I can
18:53 just say, "I think you're wrong." You do
18:56 need to have some setup and then you do
18:58 need to practice
19:00 consistently. But if you will just keep
19:03 going, you're going to get faster. And
19:07 then you'll look back and say, "I wish I
19:09 got started sooner." At least that's
19:10 been the experience that I've heard from
19:13 thousands of people over the 15 years
19:15 plus that I've been teaching these
19:16 techniques. Now, in terms of practice,
19:18 there is a principle called deliberate
19:20 practice. I've written a lot about it on
19:22 my blog, and I'd be happy for you to
19:24 have that. So, you know, just search
19:27 that up, deliberate practice and
19:29 magnetic memory method, and it's going
19:31 to help you get more information about
19:33 how to practice so that you can speed
19:35 up. And if you need more help with
19:37 memory palaces and other pneummonic
19:39 tools, please go to
19:40 magneticmemorymethod.com, look at the
19:42 magnetic memory method master class, and
19:44 it's going to help you improve the speed
19:46 of your memory through exercises and
19:49 more detail on everything we talked
19:51 about today. So, what do you say? Are
19:54 you ready to start using what really
19:56 works in order to committing information
19:59 permanently to memory fast? Let's do
20:02 this thing. And if you want more detail
20:04 right now, stick around and watch my
20:06 video on the memory palace technique for
20:07 studying
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