Quick Easy Ways to Memorize the Presidents
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Want a quick and easy way to memorize the presidents of the United states of america?
On this page, I'll evidence you how.
Fifty-fifty better, I'll bear witness you an intermediate-level skill that will let y'all add their dates in part.
And if you lot desire to go total-blown proficient-level, you can add more details too.
The more you lot explore memory techniques for powerful learning goals like committing American historical figures to your retentiveness, the more you lot'll be up to the demands of more rigorous memory tasks.
Excited? I sure am!
Here's what this post will cover:
How to Memorize the Presidents: An Ancient and Proven Method
A Proven 3-Step Process for Memorizing the Presidents with a Memory Palace
Intermediate: The Best Way To Memorize The Presidents
Advanced: Adding More than Information to the Presidents
Common Questions Almost Memorizing The Presidents
Let's become started!
How to Memorize the Presidents: An Aboriginal and Proven Method
First, yous need to build a Memory Palace that is suited to the task.
A Memory Palace is a well-formed journey that you lot create in advance. Typically, it is based on a familiar building or route.
Some people prefer indoor journeys. Others like a mix of indoor and outdoor locations. And some people just utilize the outdoors. Yet others employ fantasy locations like the homes in TV serial or the landscapes of videos games.
How practice yous cull?
The answer is like shooting fish in a barrel:
Beginning only and proceed in mind that you demand quite a bit of space for all of the presidents. Then let's do the math equally of 2020.
The current listing involves 45 names.
That means your Memory Palace needs to have 45 different "loci." That's the Ancient Greek term used when talking about the Method of Loci. This has as well been called the Roman Room method.
To make things more contemporary, I at present call these "loci," "Magnetic Stations." You'll encounter why when we get to the more advanced techniques. Once prepare up correctly, you lot can utilise them to literally stick more than information in place, just like a magnetic can hold a calendar to the surface of a fridge – and permit you lot to slip in receipts, concert ticks and more than.
Getting Started Tips:
To create 45 stations, I advise yous draw them on paper and make a journey that is linear and logical. It should non be something you lot have to memorize. Information technology should be a journey that is already in your memory. That will save you time and energy.
For example, I will employ this apartment and the surrounding neighborhood:
A Memory Palace Example for memorizing the presidents based on my local neighborhood
To identify 45 stations, I will start in the most logical spot that allows me to move slowly and in a linear journey. This is important because you want to move without confusing yourself as you keep from one identify to the next.
Numbering the stations is easy and might expect like this:
Although this numbered Retention Palace won't take all the presidents, information technology's easy to "teleport" to a second one to finish the list.
Of grade, y'all don't demand to hire a fancy artist to stand for your Retention Palace for the presidents. You but need to go out a piece of paper and describe information technology. Like this:
Starting time small. You don't have to memorize all of the presidents in the aforementioned Memory Palace. You also don't have to memorize all of them at in one case.
What you lot volition need, even so, is a strategy, and the Retentiveness Palace technique is the all-time for reasons we're about to explore.
A Proven iii-Step Process for Memorizing the Presidents with a Retentivity Palace
i. At this point, we've got the start step covered: Have one or more Retention Palaces prepared in advance.
This footstep is actually important considering you lot will slow yourself down if you create the Memory Palace as you go. This creates mental issues similar worrying that you'll run out of space or lead yourself into a expressionless stop.
2. Step 2 is to begin with the start president and the showtime Magnetic Station of your Retentivity Palace.
Y'all need to bring them both to mind at the same time. Permit'due south start pocket-size with the kickoff iv presidents and just one room of a Memory Palace. This one is made from an apartment I used to rent in Berlin, Germany:
In your imagination, identify the first president in the first corner of the Memory Palace you lot create. If you're non visual, a quick sketch will aid.
Every bit I call up most that first corner, I'g also going to think most George Washington.
And so, using a procedure called Elaborative Encoding, I'm going to allow my listen to bring up an association.
WARNING: At that place are some incredibly sophisticated techniques you can acquire that help with the clan process.
Some beginners become down the rabbit hole and try to learn these earlier they've mastered the fundamentals. Please don't put the cart before the horse. Start but and add tools like the pegword method to your skillset later.
For now, the easiest and most direct thing to do is think of some other person named George. I think about George Knuckles, a musician who played with Frank Zappa.
I think virtually George Knuckles "washing" Frank Zappa's hair on the first station of the Berlin apartment. This "encoding' links the name George with the human action of washing and that space in the Memory Palace, which makes information technology easier to "reverse engineer" later the name George Washington.
This process is similar building a mathematical equation out of words, images, concepts and spaces in the world. The real trick is in making sure that information technology all makes sense to YOU personally.
For example, correct now you lot might exist scratching your head wondering who the heck George Duke and Frank Zappa are and how you're going to find such rich imagery to use.
If that'southward the case, the answer is simple: practice.
I used to exist boring and rusty, just like everyone else who wants to memorize lists like the names of the presidents.
But with practice, I got much faster. And I put all that I know together for you in this uncomplicated course:
To continue, all you accept to practice is mentally move to the second station of your Memory Palace. As you're thinking about that location, start to mentally "weave" together a new name with some imagery.
In this case, we're looking at John Adams.
If you know these pop civilisation icons, you could have John Wayne in a shootout with a graphic symbol from the Addams Family.
Or you could be a fleck more abstract and retrieve of the famous advertising author David Ogilvy in a fight with John Hurt. John is a one-to-ane proper name correspondence, but in the case of Ogilvy, your mind is making a leap between his name and the profession of ad vertising.
As y'all grow with these skills, you'll discover many more ways to make associations. The more you larn about memory techniques and practice them, the faster your association skills volition grow.
At present and so, there'due south one more step before we become to the advanced options like adding dates.
3. Footstep three is Active Recall . In order to get the information into long term memory, you really do have to "contrary engineer" the imagery you lot place in your Memory Palace.
As neuroscientist, retentivity athlete and retentiveness expert Boris Konrad told the states on this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, no reliable memories tin can form without it.
Unlike people engage in Active Remember in different ways. Dominic O'Brien has suggested that you need to recall the information using his Rule of Five.
Personally, I've needed to exist a flake more rigorous than that for much of the data I've memorized – but other times it can be less. It all depends on the nature of the information and your strategy.
For the presidents, I would suggest you lot work in small sets of 2-x names. Go along a Memory Periodical that includes your Memory Palace drawings. Then examination yourself in writing near 5 times the beginning 24-hour interval – or more often. In that location is no magic number, which is why I created this video on the problem of learning to create your own "repetition rules."
The magic of memory techniques is that sometimes you'll get the name back automatically without needing to recall of the images you used.
Other times, y'all'll go the images back commencement and and so reverse engineer the name. Ultimately, y'all want to get the target data into your retentivity as quickly as possible. The better you get with the technique, the more you'll develop a sense for how much repetition is needed.
Intermediate: The Best Way To Memorize The Presidents
Remember when I suggested not putting the cart alee of the horse?
This suggestion all the same remains true. But the fact of the affair is that if you actually want the best list of presidential info in your memory, you're going to want to add the dates.
Here'southward how:
You'll need to learn a system that lets yous memorize numbers rapidly. Things go a bit complicated because there are a few to choose from. My analysis of the Dominic System ultimately argues that the Major Method (sometimes called the Major System) is easier and better for most people, but it'southward ultimately a personal preference.
The important factor is that you decide to be a person who improves your retentiveness and make this a journey for life. You tin add multiple techniques to your memory toolbox over fourth dimension.
For the purposes of this tutorial, allow'southward assume y'all cull the Major. Yous simply need to memorize this simple organisation:
And then, when yous run across dates you want to memorize, you'll combine the consonants to create words.
For example, Thomas Jefferson was the third president. I would think of a friend Thomas I know arguing with George Jefferson from the TV testify, The Jeffersons. Then, using this organization, I would make words for 1801-1809, which are his dates in office.
Since 18 is t+v in the Major, I'one thousand actually already covered past my association for Thomas Jefferson. The Jeffersons is a Television set bear witness, subsequently all. I only need to recognize that, link it to the Major and we're good to become.
Past adding another technique like the Major Organization, mental imagery will help you remember the dates each president spent in function.
Simply, if that's too much of a jump for yous in the starting time, yous could imagine Jefferson on the 3rd station of your Retentivity Palace groovy a TV (18) prepare down on the head of George Jefferson.
For 01, you could have a "sad" tragedy mask , which is the image I use for that number. Since zero can be represented by an S and 1 by a D, and then "sad" is a perfect option. The tragedy mask makes it more than a word by turning the concept of sadness into a tangible object.
( Pro tip: I go further than just using a non-specific mask. I retrieve about the tragic mask worn by William Shatner in his performance of Oedipus Rex. This incredibly specific image based on a story I love makes the mnemonic imagery even more physical to my imagination and thereby much easier to think.)
For 1809, you lot tin can probably skip having the TV image twice. I used to employ a Subaru driven by a friend of mine, simply now take added retentiveness expert Brad Zupp. If y'all're following the formulas of the Major, y'all'll annotation that both words work before:
Zero tin be an S or Z and nine can be a B or P. Southward + B = Subaru or Z + P = Zupp.
( Pro tip : Many people will wonder nigh the additional letters in a word like Subaru and ask: Won't that make you call back you need to think the number 094 because R can represent four? It's a great question, but I'yard sure that yous'll observe in your own do that your encephalon tin sort it out. Memory techniques are filled with all kinds of piddling knacky things like this, so it's really important not to overthink these things techniques. Once you accept the fundamentals down, yous'll find that your encephalon is supple enough to manage what appears to be conflicts or contradictions.)
Now, what I've shared with you is a process of association that progresses toward having a number of images that combine a number of pieces of data. As you develop these images yourself, you tin can refine or modify them. And you should, because the more than y'all streamline them, the better your skills will grow.
In sum, imagine the 3rd Magnetic Station of a Memory Palace. On information technology, your friend Thomas (or another Thomas you know) has a TV counterbalanced on his left hand. Information technology'due south playing The Jeffersons and involves someone doing something crazy with a tragedy mask. On his correct hand, memory expert Brad Zupp is stomping on a Subaru.
When you revisit this part of your Memory Palace later, you'll exist able to work it all out, ideally with pen and paper using your Memory Periodical. Yous want this form of active retrieve in lodge to encourage the rapid flow of the information into long term retentivity.
Advanced: Adding More Information to the Presidents
At this point, I'1000 going to assume that you've gone through all of the presidents and at to the lowest degree have their names.
After that goal has been reached, the first round of additional information to add I've suggested is their dates in office. You could likewise explore adding a 2d round by calculation their birthdates and dates of demise (where relevant).
Just at that place are besides interesting facts nearly them you tin can add. To attain that goal, here's what I would advise.
James Madison was the quaternary president of the United States from 1809-1817. On my fourth Memory Palace station, I would run across James Hetfield of Metallica getting mad at his son. To make information technology more concrete, his son would be the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Iron Maiden sung about on the iconic anthology of that title. You could also use the bodily sunday in the sky, or the lord's day from the movie poster for Sunshine. The options are endless.
For the dates, making a new clan for 1809 is not necessary in this instance. You only need something for 17, in which instance you could utilize a tack or someone similar the political commentator Tucker Carlson. Or peradventure y'all could have a tack piercing Carlson (which I'm certain some people would similar to practice). Just that one boosted image gives you the dates y'all demand for this president.
Let's say you wanted to also remember that Madison was Princeton Academy'due south first graduate. You could add a prince's crown to James Hetfield'southward head. Or, you could tuck a copy of The Prince by Machiavelli under his arm (or take both images).
Let'southward say you wanted to remember that Madison initially opposed the Neb of Rights. In this example, yous could accept him burning a certificate up, or scratching out what it says with a quill.
Employ your imagination. The images yous can add are countless. And if you run out of space, all y'all need to do is add a Memory Palace just for James Madison.
Common Questions About Memorizing The Presidents
How long volition it take?
Some people manage to memorize all of them in under an 60 minutes. Others volition demand more fourth dimension.
I suggest the post-obit:
Instead of wondering how long it will accept, have a strong reason why you're memorizing the president. So, if it takes a piffling longer, who cares? You lot'll have fulfilled the reason and exist able to soar by any bumps in the road.
How will I remember which president belongs to which number?
If you desire to always recall that James K. Polk was the 11th president of the United States, you have a few options.
First, you can make all of your Retentivity Palaces the same. If each Retention Palace has 10 stations, for instance, you can simply do some simple math. Since Polk will be the first station in your second Memory Palace, he must exist the eleventh president. This gives y'all an additional calculation to brand, simply information technology'southward going to be peachy brain practise for you.
2d, using the Major Method, you tin can develop an image for every digits from 00-99. This gear up of pre-designed images is fantastic and well worth developing – provided yous develop the foundational skills beginning. And then, every station can automatically have an paradigm that reminds you of its number without needing every Retentivity Palace to have a certain number of stations in lodge to provide a adding.
Adding all of these boosted images sounds messy! Won't I go confused?
Yous might get confused if yous haven't developed the foundational skills. But in reality, most people who dedicate themselves to these techniques not merely avert defoliation. They detect many wonderful options for scaling their skills over time. Typically, we notice that all confusion is very welcome because information technology teaches united states how to pivot our approach and improve over time.
Are there whatsoever songs I can employ as an alternative?
Yes, and this is one of them:
However, learning this vocal does not diminish the need to learn a ways of memorizing the song itself. If you prefer to go this route, here's how to memorize a song.
Other people teach the Memory Palace differently? What makes this approach ameliorate?
It'due south not a question of better or worse. It'due south a question of the student'due south willingness to focus on one teacher at a time. I recommend you have a stiff why behind all of your learning projects. Then, when seeking memory comeback grooming, stick with one teacher at a time for at least a 90 day period. Do what they propose and so add another teacher's material, repeating the 90 solar day study principle.
Within a year, you lot'll exist a memory principal and very grateful yous focused on seriously learning these techniques instead of hopping all over the net for the adjacent "shiny new technique." The reality is that all of the training out there is very similar, and your real goal is to become the kind of learner who studies and practices these techniques thoroughly.
After all, it's (usually) but through serious study and exercise in at least i profession that anyone gets to be president in the first identify, right?
Source: https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/how-to-memorize-the-presidents/
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