Using regular visualization methods, we can remember something for days, but we will forget the information eventually unless we review the information from variors perspectives or use additional methodology for long-term retention. When we need to remember something for years and years we have several choices. One of the more popular solutions are flash cards. …
Your life as a story: using autobiographic memory
Quite often we can view our life as a story. People often tell that before the clinical death they could see their whole life passing before their eyes. This is the autobiographic memory in action. Autobiographic memory is very important in our life. We can train it, we can use it to remember other things, …
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Long term memory and sleep
One thing that bothers me with long-term memory is the need to review the flashcards or mental palaces or other memory structures. Most memory experts I know use spaced repetitions constantly. Since I use slightly different tools, I use spaced repetitions only for very specific issues, and when I use it I do not like …
Big data and your memory
Computers are getting smarter than humans. There is nothing we can really do about it, we can maybe delay the inevitable… We can also try to use the same ideas that computers are using and get some advantage over other fellow humans. This post has been inspired by this and this articles. Big data and …
Physical switches in our brain
Our brain is a physical object, and its reactions are physical. We may attribute our memories and experiences to some spiritual and intellectual domain, which is perfectly fine. Sometimes, however, it is best to attribute our experiences to misinterpreted physical experiences. For example, if you have a bad gut feeling, it is probably a heartburn …
Journal of markers for complex subjects
Sometimes coming up with visualizations is easy, and sometimes it is very hard. When we deal with abstract and professional terms, names and languages the visualization process suddenly become complex. There is only so much time we can allocate to visualize and remember everything while reading. How do we deal with such situations? The easiest …
How to remember a dense book 1000 pages long?
How do we remember a dense book 1000 pages long? This is not a trivial question and it is asked quite often. Obviously, we need a good strategy. As always, everyone can make his own strategy. Quite often I change my strategy based on the content. Let us discuss one possible strategy, and you can …
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Mental math
We have powerful computers, why do we still do mental math? Part of it has to do with building intuition and checking for errors, part of it has to do with the speed of decision making, some of it is a great brain practice and yet a bit of it is a magic. Whatever the …
Do mental math
Read about Trachtenberg system for mental math. Now choose a random number. Start with 5 digits, with time try to upgrade to longer numbers. Do mental computations. Expected effects: faster and better working memory access, improvement of mathematical tasks. No program or tools required: everything can be done in your head. Beginner level Multiply by …
Six types of socratic questions
We ask similar questions after each time we preread or read the text. The questions can be divided into questions building our curiosity so we can focus on the text and questions we asked in order to ensure we understood the text properly. This post mainly deals with questions of the second kind. If we …