INTRODUCTION
Today I’m sharing all my memory systems, my complete Anki deck for all memory disciplines (numbers, cards, spoken numbers, binary, words, dates, and even abstract images!), together with a schedule to learn the whole thing. The entire deck has 22,554 flashcards and 7,310 media files, so it was a HUGE time commitment. I hope you guys enjoy it.
MEMORY SYSTEMS
If you wish to understand all the systems that I use, I recommend you to read the following Excel spreadsheet, where I explain all of them:
The most important ones are my 3-digit PO and the Double-2-Block System.
ANKI DECK
You can download my complete Anki deck here:
If you don’t know Anki, it’s a free and open-source flashcard app that applies both spaced repetition and active recall to your learning. To learn how to use it and how it works, I recommend its manual.
The following are the explanations for the different parts of the deck:
Fields
Each flashcard has 18 fields. The most important ones are “Number,” “Person,” and “Object.” There are only 1,111 notes, which give rise to all the 22,554 flashcards through the 40 different card types I created. This means that, if you change a peg, you’ll only need to manually update one flashcard, and all the sibling ones will be automatically updated. Each note has a number that it represents:
- There are ten 1-digit notes;
- There are a hundred 2-digit notes;
- There are a thousand 3-digit notes;
- There is one “Nothingness” note, which encodes no digit but still has a person and an object.
In the “Person” field, there is the written name and the image of a person that represents the number of the note, following the Major System rules. The same is true for the objects. It’s CRUCIAL that the fields “Person” and “Object” have images as I’ll explain in the Decoding/Encoding section. I put about one image for 1 and 2-digit pegs and about three for 3-digit pegs.
Decoding/Encoding:
The deck is divided into “Decoding” and “Encoding.” The former shows the peg on the front and asks for the respective information (number, pair of cards, date, abstract image, etc.) while the latter shows the information on the front and asks for the respective peg.
For instance, the deck “People” inside “Major System” inside “Encoding” will show numbers on the front and the person on the back. The deck inside “Decoding” will show the person on the front and the respective number they represent on the back instead.
It’s important to point out that the decoding flashcards don’t show the NAME of the person/object, but only the image. I did this customization by changing the settings of the card types. This means that you’ll need to decode the image into the information without the help of the written name. That was done to make it more similar to how the recalling process actually works in memory competitions.
DISCIPLINES
Numbers
The Major System decks are the most fundamental ones since all the other systems are based on them. These flashcards are divided into 1,111 People and 1,111 Objects.
Cards
These flashcards were only possible thanks to @TheHumanTim ‘s pictures of pairs of cards. If you wish to get them, you can find his images here. I manually copied every single one of his 2,916 JPG files to put into my deck, so it was quite tiresome, haha. Btw, if you wish to learn the Shadow System using Anki, you can use Tim’s Anki template.
In the encoding deck, the front shows the image of the pair of cards, and the back shows the peg. The peg written name’s color changes according to the color of the first card: red name means red first while black name means black first.
In the decoding deck, the front shows the image of the peg, but not its name. The phrases “RED FIRST” or “BLACK FIRST” appear to allow you to identify the exact pair of cards being referred to. This is necessary because the D2B system uses a blocking strategy, so each image encodes 2 different pairs of cards.
The name of the deck is “Double-2-Block Cards,” and it has subdecks to specify the pairs of cards: Black Black, Black Red, Red Black, and Red Red. If you wish to specify according to the specific suit or the specific rank, you’ll need to use the tags.
Spoken Numbers
Many people complain about not having resources to practice Spoken Numbers. Now you have a way to practice it! You’ll be able to hear the digits instead of seeing them. They are pronounced at the rate of 2 per second (twice faster than in competitions to help you get even better).
Abstract images
More difficult to practice than Spoken Numbers is only Abstract Images. Fortunately, @Zoomy (Ben Pridmore) sent me his database with all the textures used at the WMSC World Memory Championship. I took his images and put them in Anki according to visual similarity to my pegs.
Binary
I encode 10 binary digits per peg:
- The first digit encodes the list (0 means person while 1 means object);
- The other digits encode the 3-digit decimal number.
Affixes
For words, I associated multiple prefixes and suffixes with images from my 3-digit lists. After some discussion here, I decided to follow @Bigdonnyv 's advice and ditched that idea. He further sent me some suffixes in case I wanted to use images to memorize them, so I built a list out of both his examples and others I found online. I may not even use this deck in the future, but it may be helpful to have these associations strong just in case a tough word appears.
Dates
This deck helps you memorize time, dates, and years. Only the last one is helpful for memory competitions, but being capable of memorizing birthdays and appointments quickly is quite useful for life.
Tags
I tagged all the flashcards according to the information on the card. It’s important to point out that the tags don’t overlap with the division of subdecks. The subdecks were created to separate flashcards that came from the same note. However, since all sibling cards share all their tags, I tagged them in order to separate completely different flashcards. For instance, the decks for cards separate flashcards according to the colors of the pair. The tags, however, separate according to what the suit is. If you want to study a very specific set of flashcards using filtered decks, you’ll probably need a combination of subdecks and tags.
SCHEDULE
You can learn all 2,222 images from the 3-digit PO list in 10 weeks following this schedule. It’s important that you build your own pegs. DON’T SIMPLY USE MY IMAGES!!! They are available just to give you a sense of what it means to have a full 3-digit system on Anki.
Week 1
Go to my 3-digit list on the Excel spreadsheet I shared at the beginning. Create a copy of it and delete the cells: this will be your personal list. Follow these steps to fill it:
- Try to come up with a person to fill each cell in the People columns;
- If you can’t think of anyone, go to my list and pick someone memorable you know;
- If you don’t know anyone, pick the one you find the most memorable. This means you’ll need to google them and look at their pictures!
During weekends, fill at least 303 person cells per day. During weekdays, fill at least 101 person cells per day.
Week 2
- Try to come up with an object to fill each cell in the Object columns;
- If you can’t think of one, go to my list and pick a memorable object you know;
- If you don’t know any, pick the one you find the most memorable.
During weekends, fill at least 303 object cells per day. During weekdays, fill at least 101 object cells per day.
If, during week 1 or 2, you feel you can’t use any of the words in my list, then you’ll need to find one on your own. I recommend the following websites to help with your search:
Weeks 3 and 4
Now it’s time to add your pegs to Anki! Google each peg, copy the most memorable pictures, and paste them on Anki. I recommend adding just one image per peg unless you don’t know the person/object well. I put many more images than necessary, but that’s because I like having them. You should fill the ones and the hundreds first, so you’ll be capable of starting practice already.
During weekends, fill at least 303 pegs per day. During weekdays, fill at least 101 pegs per day.
If you are very busy, you may take longer to finish this first-month schedule, or, if you got time, you may take less. I myself took just a few vacation days to put all the images on Anki.
Weeks 5, 6, and 7
Now it’s time to memorize the people. For this, use the Encoding > Major System > People deck.
During weekdays, learn 75 people per day. During weekends, just review the ones you learned.
I recommend using the Anki Auto Advance feature to force you to get faster. It turns out that practicing for speed makes the images stick better. During the weekdays, you can build a filtered deck with 25 people. First, give yourself 10 seconds to recall the pegs. When you get most right, rebuild the deck and give yourself 7 seconds, then 5, then 3, and finally 2 seconds. Do this for the other two 25 groups of people (3 x 25 = 75).
During the weekends, review the images trying to get faster as well. You’ll encounter a bunch of hard ones. To deal with them, flag them red and build a filtered deck with them. Give yourself more time to recall these images, but, after rebuilding the deck each time, decrease the recall time using Anki’s Auto Advance up to 1 second. Finally, remove the flags and try to review the previously tough cards together with the normal ones.
Since you’ll rebuild the decks multiple times, it’s better not to build filtered decks smaller than 25 cards or bigger than 50 cards.
Weeks 8, 9, and 10
Now it’s time to memorize the objects. For this, use the Encoding > Major System > Objects deck.
During weekdays, learn 75 objects per day. During weekends, just review the ones you learned.
I recommend using the Anki Auto Advance feature to force you to get faster. It turns out that practicing for speed makes the images stick better. During the weekdays, you can build a filtered deck with 25 objects. First, give yourself 10 seconds to recall the pegs. When you get most right, rebuild the deck and give yourself 7 seconds, then 5, then 3, and finally 2 seconds. Do this for the other two 25 groups of objects (3 x 25 = 75).
During the weekends, review the images trying to get faster as well. You’ll encounter a bunch of hard ones. To deal with them, flag them red and build a filtered deck with them. Give yourself more time to recall these images, but, after rebuilding the deck each time, decrease the recall time using Anki’s Auto Advance up to 1 second. Finally, remove the flags and try to review the previously tough cards together with the normal ones.
Since you’ll rebuild the decks multiple times, it’s better not to build filtered decks smaller than 25 cards or bigger than 50 cards.
CONGRATS!!! 
If you followed all of this, CONGRATS!!! You now have a full 3-digit PO list memorized!!! To learn the other systems, just apply the same idea of building filtered decks and pushing yourself to get faster using Auto Advance.
Since the Affixes and Abstract Images were chosen to match the pegs, not the numbers, you’ll need to redo the associations after you put your own images. You can use the tags to help you in the process of cutting and pasting the affixes and the abstract images. When you finish it, some flashcards will end up empty; to remove the empty cards, go to 'Tools" → “Empty Cards” in the main window. You will be shown a list of empty cards and be given the option to delete them. The new affixes and abstract image flashcards will be automatically created when you make your own associations, but they will be added to the Default deck, so you’ll need to send them to the right decks. Use the search options to find and select the right cards quickly.
As extra tips for those who read until the end, I’m gonna share some extremely useful add-ons to help in the process of learning the flashcards:
- Advanced Browser: get additional statistics about the cards to help you find the hard ones. The most useful info is “Percent Correct,” which allows you to know the flashcards you’re getting wrong more often;
- Advanced Review Bottom Bar: add a skip button, remove the “easy” and “hard” buttons, add more information to the overview stats of the decks, and many other things;
- Review Heatmap: visualize past and future card review activity.
If you find some mistake, please let me know. If you have some advice, criticism, or question, feel free to say it as well.
