Context
Hi! My name is Maike Anthony, and I’ve been practicing memory techniques for almost 5 years now. However, I’ve never practiced speed memorization. After reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein last year (I should’ve read it earlier), I got a strong desire to get faster.
My motivation to write this journal is threefold: to get advice from experienced athletes, share a detailed account of my practice to help others, and motivate myself to keep going. In fact, most of the time I shared an idea on the forum, I received great insights, impossible to get otherwise. Moreover, an additional goal of this thread is to apply the most efficient methods for training that I know of to get a better sense of how they work. In other words, this is a journal about discovering how to efficiently get better at something, whatever it is.
Disciplines
I’m going to hone the following skills:
- 5-min Numbers
- 5-min Binary
- Speed Cards
- 5-min Words
- 5-min Names (WMSC style: international names, surnames, and faces)
- Recognition speed (Anki) / Memory Palaces navigation speed
I won’t practice marathons yet because I want to build speed first. Also, I may exchange my speed practice for long-term goals. For instance, if I decide to memorize a book, I will use my memory training time.
Anki Deck and Systems
If you want to see my Anki deck and systems, you may access them here.
For cards, I’ll be using the Double-2-Block System together with Variable Spatial Encoding to differentiate the colors of the suits (2-card system).
Special thanks to @TheHumanTim , @Honje , @Bigdonnyv , and @Zoomy for their advice, criticism, ideas, and resources. They helped me a lot with formulating my methods and the Anki deck.
Memory Palaces
I have shared my list of Memory Palaces here. I hope to build others in the future, and my final goal is to have 15 Memory Palaces in total (3.510 loci) for memory training.
All of them are universal. That is, each of them will store information from any discipline. When I finish a trial, I’m simply going to start the next one at the next empty locus.
Websites
In order to practice, I’m going to use the following websites:
- Memory League (Speed Cards)
- BSE Memory (5-min Numbers and 5-min Binary)
- Arabian Memory (5-min Words and 5-min Names)
IAM Training Website is good too, so I may use it sometimes, but not very often because it doesn’t have auto advance.
Special thanks to @Aa123456 for sharing the Arabian Memory website here. I would never have found it otherwise.
Equipment
I’m going to use the following objects:
- Blinders (swimming goggles painted black with holes in the middle to obscure peripheral vision)
- Industrial earmuffs for sound isolation
- Timers for Rubik’s cube (I don’t have this yet, but I intend to buy it for when I practice with physical decks)
The first two are the most important ones since they help a lot with concentration.
Memory Training Log
After each trial, I’m going to fill in the following Memory Log spreadsheet:
This is where I’m going to record all my progress and will share its updates with you guys. I hope you find this table useful for your own practice too.
The red columns are supposed to be filled right after the trial, while the blue ones are only filled at the end of the whole session.
The distraction column refers exclusively to external ones, like sounds or people in the background. Internal distractions should be placed in either the “Mind-wandering” or “Drowsiness” columns. (PS: this paragraph refers to columns that used to exist in the spreadsheet: the focus columns. I deleted them as I’ll explain in my second post.)
The deliberate practice columns are by far the most important ones, sometimes even more important than the practice itself. When I write down any insight or lesson, I’ll highlight the cell in red to make it easier to find.
In the well-being columns, I write “X” if I experienced any of those problems or write nothing at all if I didn’t. (PS: this paragraph refers to columns that used to exist in the spreadsheet: the well-being columns. I deleted them as I’ll explain in my second post.)
The short-term goals are the ones I’ll have in mind during every trial. When using auto advance, the short-term goals will be used to set the speed. The long-term goals, though, are the ones I hope to achieve in a longer time frame, like weeks or months.
I’m going to use this rule to determine whether I should increase the short-term goal:
After three trials all with at least 80% accuracy and one with at least 90%, I’m going to increase the short-term goal by 20% (i.e. multiply the amount by 1.2 or divide the time by 1.2).
(PS: I actually changed this rule a few weeks after the start of my training. I’ll tell you the new rule in my next update.)
For the long-term goals, they are currently the following:
- 5-min Numbers: 265 digits
- 5-min Binary: 500 digits
- Speed Cards: 40 seconds for one deck
- 5-min Words: 50 words
- 5-min Names: 40 names
I hope it’ll take at most two years to reach all of them.
Schedule
I’m going to practice three sessions before lunch and one session after it. Each of them takes 50 minutes, followed by a 15-min break.
Inside each session, there’ll be multiple trials without breaks between them. To apply varied practice to my training, I am going to choose the disciplines of each trial at random using Google’s Random Number Generator. Therefore, I may end up memorizing a deck of cards, then words, then numbers, then names, and so on, but I won’t do the same discipline again before doing each one at least once that day. Applying interleaving and varied practice means that my improvement will be very slow at first, but I hope the long-term benefits will make this strategy worth it.
The only defined practice will be the recognition speed/memory palaces navigation speed, which I will always practice in the session after lunch, and only during it.
I’m going to practice 5 days a week (usually one weekday and one weekend for breaks), so it’ll be 16 hours and 40 minutes of training per week.
For planning, I’m going to use habit tracking (to motivate myself) and time-blocking (to organize my schedule). These two methods are crazily good for habit formation and discipline. In fact, they are what practically cured my maladaptive daydreaming.
If some unforeseen event, like sickness or loss, happens, forcing me to stop practicing, get worse performance, and feel like giving up, I’m only going to allow myself to give up the project after I get as good as before the event.
All this schedule is valid only until the middle of August. Since I’m going to start undergraduate education in the USA as an international student, I don’t know how my training will change when the fall semester starts.
Breaking Through Plateaus
I may apply one or more of the following methods when I face plateaus:
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Increase difficulty: I may increase the amount or the speed to force myself to get better. When one tries harder, they fail at first, but they should inspect the mistakes because they are the weak points, which should be worked on.
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Practice differently: by changing the training, one can spot things that are hard to see, which will allow for improvement. For instance, I may train on paper instead of digitally, practice without auto-advance, memorize in public, decrease the amount but increase the speed, etc.
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Stop practicing: when I’ve tried everything but still can’t spot anything to work on, it’s probably better to take a break from that discipline. After coming back, it’s common to experience a sudden improvement, which may be caused by the incubation effect. I’m going to take either 4 or 5-day breaks.
Health and Well-Being
I’m doing all these things:
- Sleep: 10 PM to 6 AM (8 hours) every night;
- Sleep hygiene: no electronic devices after 9 PM (except for my Kindle);
- Siesta: 30-min nap after lunch;
- Water: 4 liters per day;
- Alcohol/cigarettes/drugs: none;
- Coffee/energy drinks: I may drink them very rarely, about once or twice a month;
- Omega-3 supplements: 1000 mg of DHA and 300 mg of EPA per day;
- Gym: 6 days a week (1 hour of weightlifting and 20 min of aerobic exercise);
- Diet: following the gym’s nutritionist (I’m not strict. When I hang out, I don’t mind eating some sweets, for instance.);
- Sun exposure: 10-min sunbath, 4 days a week;
- The Wim Hof Method: breathing technique + cold showers, in the evening and 6 days a week (I’ll be doing this mostly for health reasons, but I still decided to mention it because it may have psychological advantages as well).
Posting
I don’t promise any frequency, but it will probably be every week or two. It depends on whether I’m going to have any insight to share. In any case, I’ll be updating the Memory Log Spreadsheet in this post with my performance and lessons, so you can check that instead. Finally, if I make any big decision, like changing the disciplines or giving up, I’m going to let you guys know.
My training started on May 2, 2024. My next post will include what I learned during this time.
