Reshaping How to Memorize...Gaining a new Superpower

Comment I wrote in response to Derek Siver's article on Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software (Go read that now.)

This is incredible. Scratch that. This is life changing. Thank you so much for sharing Derek.

I was skeptical that Spaced Repetition Software would work for me and my terrible memory. I've tried plenty of techniques in the past. For instance, I spent a while learning the peg system in an effort to be able to memorize dates, numbers and lists. While it worked, it serves me more as a party trick than an actual life changing approach to memory.

What I particularly love about using Anki, which I've been doing for a half an hour a day on the bus since reading this article, is I feel the information is actually sticking. Because of that, I want to spend more time learning, and because of that my memory muscle is actually growing stronger. My ability to memorize quicker and quicker is already improving. I've gone from hating the very idea of memorizing to getting excited about learning more. I've always been frustrated wasting time memorizing because I knew it was facts I'd just forget in another couple months. This doesn't feel like that. This feels like I'm gaining a super power.

I did a small test over the course of the last three weeks to see if Anki would really work for me. I didn't want to jump into something ambitious like a programming language before seeing if it actually worked for a small data set. I challenged myself to use it to learn the names of all of the countries in the world. There's less then 200. If Anki could teach me those, I had faith I could then go on to more ambitious challenges.

I loaded a shared deck, and three weeks later, I feel confident I know them all. It took half an hour on the bus every day, but that's a small sacrifice. In a few more weeks it will be cemented for life. That's incredible. Now I'm excited for what I'll be taking on next.

In this order

  • Bones of the body
  • Muscle systems
  • Names of all of my facebook acquaintances
  • Street names in San Francisco
  • Biblical Hebrew
  • Music Theory
  • Wordpress tags

That should take me well into next year.

Life changing Derek. Life changing. Thank you.