I read about memory systems a couple years ago, never got fully into it. Finally finished my first 00-99 PAO system and put it below. I think a few verbs will be difficult for example “skipping” vs “frisbeeing” or skydiving vs flying. Let me know your thoughts or suggestions!
*Edit, this was supposed to be primarily based off the major system but I filled the gaps with personal friends or things I thought were memorable if I couldn’t find something to fit
Great Job!
For 09 I’d use lightsaber-ing as the action and similarly for 13 I’d have QB-ing. Reason being that even though “waving” (09) you have more options when creating your compound PAO images, but during recall that may not be the best idea to have that much ambiguity. In 44/45 you use hammering/frisbeeing as the actions and that will get you much faster back to the overall 44/45 image.
Also 10 and 23 are both flags for objects which can lead to confusion. Now, you could argue that they are different flags, but really what’s on the flag is a secondary attribute. The same would apply to a birthday cake and a wedding cake. Eventually, you’ll start encoding so fast, that it’s the essence of a flag and the essence of a cake… by then you might be too familiar with you images to easily change then, so just keep in mind what will happen once you’re getting really fast with your system.
Take 350910 which currently gives you Mila Kunis waving a Nazi flag, when you could have Mila Kunis lightsabering a swastika. The problem is that after a deck of cards (17 locations) you might not remember which flag she was waving and once that happens you might start second guessing yourself on flag-waving actions, because that very different from waving a lightsaber. You might then end up with 43 as carrying a flag, thinking that you just animated the carrying action a little… and the obvious thing to do with flags is wave them as you carry them.
I guess you see where I’m going with this…
This was very helpful thanks! How would you use certain actions that also have the same object? For instance, Donald Trump Shoveling Shovels 191919 would create the image of Donald trump shoveling shovels or Donald trump shoveling with a shovel… does that make any sense?
191911 would be Donald trump shoveling golf balls or Donald trump shoveling with a golfball
Yeah, it’s just the P, A, and O for 19, 19, and 19. Now I don’t know the significance of shovel and shovels as A and O, respectively; I’d have a different image associated, but there is no difference here as far as composing the compound image.
This happens so rarely though, you might as well make it “Me (as in yourself) handing Gold Star to [Person]”. That way it’s easily identifiable and you don’t end up searching for A and O because you think you somehow forgot it along the way.
Don’t forget to tie the P to the location this information is stored in. You can just have him shovel the ground at that location and a bunch of people throwing golf balls at him at the same time.
So I always thought of PAO as an entire image at a location does anyone else do this? Or tie a string of quick connections, place - person - action - object?
OMG! This is something new, but still I doubt understanding it 
Yes, that’s how it’s done by almost all memorisers. There are some other methods, but most of the time it’s the method of using the locis (the spot at the place) to store the information which is your random PAO. So you are doing it right.
As for 19 19 19, D-Trump Showelling a Showell;
Choose an alternative Action Or an Image for every double digits regardless of what the double digits may be.
As an example, you may use something like “A Double Decker Bus”.
So when you use the showell on a Double Decker Bus, you know the last image was also 19, or whatever the previous image or action you used for your 2 digits.
Here is another example;
Let’s say it was 19 22 22 ,
so this would be; D-Trump Drumming on a Double Decker Bus.
I use this method for my Double digits, and works every time.
Hope it works for you too.
It would have to be whatever the action you have set it to be.
191911 would b;
Donald trump shoveling golf ball/s
Here is the trick to deal with it; make the golf ball Huge in size, bigger than the showell. This will help you to see/imagine it much easier than showelling a normal size golf ball. Exaggerating the dimensions of an object while memorising will help your visualisation and imagination.
If the item was already Huge, then you may just resize it to make it a little smaller, but keep the action as you set it to program your mind with it.
Hi everybody, thank you for sharing this list, I’m having a hard time finding all the characters for my 00-99 PAO list, so this is very helpful.
The greatest obstacle for me is finding the right actions because some can be too vague or don’t blend well with certain objects. For example if I had to memorize the number 8866, I would have to blend 50 cent and his action of putting on something (a bulletproof vest as in this list) , with Charlie Chaplin’s object which is a cane. I don’t know how to properly visualize 50 cent putting on a cane as if it was a vest, because the motion of putting on something to wear doesn’t fit well with a cane. Could a solution be 50 cent putting on a bulletproof vest made out of many small canes, even if by doing so I’m keeping 50 cent’s object and bleding it with Charlie’s object?
A vest made of dozens and dozens of canes. Maybe imagine a puffy ski vest but each “roll” is a horizontal cane? It’s clacking and snagging on things as he tries to move?
Thank you for the reply, I didn’t think of it that way and I must say that it sounds like a vivid a image and it’s also a lot easier to visualize. Do you know of any website where I can find more PAO lists? Also what do you think of PAOs that include more than one object out of necessity to make the action clear and unmistakable for another. For example this list features Tiger Woods putting a golf ball , is it better to have Tiger Woods - (action) putting (just the motion without the club) - (object) with a golf club OR Tiger Woods - (action) putting with a golf club - a golf ball (object)?
Ideally you want to eventually be able to separate the person and the action and the object and associate them individually to the number.
It’s a little bit of a challenge with the traditional PAO approach where only the PERSON is encoded directly by the number. In that case there is an extra initial step of decoding the action and object by first associating them back to the person and then associating the person to the number.
It’s very tempting to learn a PAO by practicing and visualizing the complete image with all 3 elements, but you will rarely have that occur when actually memorizing.
You should try to get to a point where you can directly associate:
XX = Tiger Woods when it is in the person position.
XX = putting when it’s in the action position.
XX = golf ball when it’s in the object position.
Through practice the middleman links will eventually fall away.
I’ve advocated for building every element of a PAO by directly using major system phonetics. This way you can simply read the number sounds and get to either your person, action, or object without having to reassociate with the person. It also forces independent association because the PAO for a specific number doesn’t directly logically relate to the person, but I think this is good thing because ideally you want to directly associate each element to the number by itself anyway…
I posted about this a while back, with some good discussion, if you want to take a look: Tip for practicing PAO
I think ideally the action should not be learned with an object. It should just be the motion of putting. Because then you will need to substitute various objects when actually memorizing.
So performing a putting motion would seem to me to be the best way to learn it.
Again, you want to learn these elements on their own. As tempting as it is to link them all logically, you won’t be doing that when actually memorizing.
If you can consistently visualize the putting motion, you can make the person putt with anything… A vacuum cleaner, a boxing glove, whatever. But if you always visualize putting as including a putter, it will be hard to dissolve that putter from your scenes when doing actual memorization where other objects will need to take that place.
Thank you so much for being so thorough with your explanation, I have a better grasp now as to what to do after completing my PAO list in order to learn it effectively. Thank you for the link to the discussion as well!
Hi Bjoern,
A lot of what you said there resonates with me as my biggest challenge in creating my PAO list is finding actions that don’t look too vague. Finding the person and the object is not that big of a deal however it’s hard for me to find actions that have a unique motion that isn’t easily mistaken for another. I was wondering if you could share your own PAO list to see what kind of actions you chose for your list.
Thanks in advance.
Check out mine if you want. When I made this list I tried to select actions that were unambiguous.
I´m a bit late here, however I wanted to say thank you Tim for always being helpful! When my own list will be done I will let you know.
