Occasionally we ask ourselves: why do we forget at all? What if we could remember things forever? Apparently forgetting things helps us to deal with traumas. One of the best ways to deal with traumatic experience is rewriting the traumatic memory. Some courage is required, so do not attempt this if you do not have …
Memory grandmasters
There are many memory grandmasters. To qualify for memory grandmaster one must complete 3 trials: 10 decks cards in one hour, 1000 numbers in one hour and one card deck in 2 min, not necessarily all in one tournament. There are further standard memory events, like memorizing 200 random words in 10 min or learn 60 …
Memory challenges
The top ranking memory champion recommends this memory sites for everybody willing to become memory sportsman. One of the coolest features of the site is a list on memory challanges. Unlike technical memory exercises, these mental challenges are packed with useful information. If you are premed student or want-to-be memory sportsman and want to check …
Nature vs nurture
Some of our students wonder regarding nature vs nurture controversy. The subject is very much open. See for example this nice article or these inspiring quotes. I will try to share some of my own experience. Back in 2008 came this amazing book which claimed to determine some of the factors that contribute to high …
Effective chunking with 2×2 grid
Memory champion Wang Feng uses a very simple and efficient chunking method. Wang Feng is arguably the fastest mnemonist alive, so his method works. The simplicity of this method is only superficial, and you need a lot of practicing to master it – more than other methods we teach. Influenced by the structure of his …
Basic training
While some training requires high level of skill, other exercises may be started as soon as you want. What skills can you train right away? Linking markers Creating short stories that include given words is a very simple way to remember things. Practice linking markers exercise in several ways. Level 1: Create stories with words …
Power of details
One of the things that limit our reading speed is the speed of creating markers. If we were required to create a marker per detail within a text, we would end up with a choice between 250wpm at 80% retention and 1000wpm at 20% retention. In fact, one of the reasons that other speedreading courses …
Doodling at school and at work will boost your productivity
Once in a while we write about doodling (or freestyle annotation) and its benefits. Students drawing in their papers where mistreated by generations of teachers. They were asked to focus, to stop fooling around and to listen to the teachers. However, the human spirit is stronger than education fashions, and student persistently doodled in school …
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Superlearning for young and old
We have students of all ages. Our intelligence changes with age, and what works for one age will not necessarily work for another. Typically our course works well for ages between 13 and 65, however it can be easily adapted for wider age ranges. Before age of 13 kids simply do not read fast enough …
Building timeline and visualizing history
A very small percentage of people (~2%) is born with extremely good autobiographic memory: they remember every student in their class and every event of their life. Yesterday I met some classmates whom I have not seen for 26 years. Some things remained the same, but one thing that changes was my perception of childhood. …
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