I would like to start memorizing dates (birthdays, starts/ends to wars, when books/songs/movies were published, when influential people lived, when things were invented, etc… ) as well as credit/debit cards, street addresses, etc which often come in numbers indivisible by 3, which poses an issue with using my 00-99 PAO system.
Lets take the date of my grandma: 07/08/1934.
With my system, I can memorize 07/08/34 in a single PAO image and just remember that my grandma was born in the 1900s and not the 1800s or 2000s – easy. But what about very old dates in which I can confuse the century or millennia in which something happened. Lets say I want to remember 07/08/1934, then I’d have one PAO image, but a remainder of “34”, what do I do about this number?
Or what about any other number, like a credit card number, for example, 1234-5678-9101-1213, which can be broken down into two PAO images (12-34-56, and 78-91-01), but then there is a remaining four digits (1213) which I am not really sure what to do about.
I could simply place the image of the person “34” next to the PAO image of 07-08-19, but this seems unorganized, so there must be another way to go about this. Maybe coming up with a major system equivalent to “19”, like “tape” for example, and then imagine the image created from 07-08-34 getting “taped up” by a big roll of duct tape.
You don’t have to use the PAO format for everything. PAO is a particular way of organizing imagery, but with the Major System as a foundation you can get creative outside of that structure as well. For something thats not going to change, like a credit card number, you have the option to take your time and craft your mnemonic imagery to include longer or different words than you have in your pre-defined 2-digit system.
1213 could be “TaNDeM” like a skydiver duo. Or “DowNTiMe” where someone’s killing time at the office water cooler…
For Dates, having some kind of indicator for centuries is a good idea, but it doesn’t have to be a P or A or O. It could be an adjective, a “texture” or “filter” over your scene, or you can create specific memory palace areas that represent different centuries and set your scenes there. You could also use 3-digit object to represent the last 3 digits of the date. This wouldn’t require you to necessarily memorize a 3-digit list, since the application isn’t speed competetition. You could use a resource like memcoder.com to give you ideas for those 3-digit numbers. (Or take a look around the forum for some lists. Here’s mine: New Two-Card System: 2-block (1352 element), Simple Phonetic Structure - #25 by TheHumanTim )
1934 would be 934… BoMbeR or BeaMeR or PalMeR could be that image.
Again, if you’re trying to memorize random number sequences as fast as possible a pre-defined system like PAO is great, but explore other applications of major if you aren’t in a rush to encode these longer or odd length strings.
Also, as it relates to credit cards, passcodes, etc., (but also dates): once I have created the image, and once I find a way to make the association that this image means this number which means this real-world thing, where do I place this image, or need I place it in a place at all? Is it enough that the image I created for June 1914 be in some random street corner, or need I place it in a Memory palace, and which memory palace if any?
And as for memorizing a card number, is it enough to just memorize the image, or should I place it somewhere so that I can come back to it?
Regarding what you said about creating an indicator for centuries, and also after reading this post on a different discussion thread, I have a couple of questions that I’d like your opinion on. Here is the forum so you know what I’m referencing. Best way to remember dates? - #3 by mvakkur
So, the most important reason to memorize historical dates is the association aspect. That is, it is unnecessary to memorize 28th June 1914 if you cannot remember that this means “Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated”. In my PAO system, I could neglect the 28th, as I don’t need to be this exact, but to remember June (06) and 1914 would mean an image of BoRat (Sacha Baron Cohen) TaPPing on a DooR. In and of itself, this image doesn’t particularly display the beginning of World War 1.
In my mind, it would be more useful to simply use the Major system and nothing else. For example, I could imagine a roll of Sushi (06) being thrown at the Archduke which kills him, and in the process, makes his hair fall off which turns out to be a toupee (19) upon which a deer (14) comes and starts licking his bald head. (Not the most pleasant imagery, sorry)
Any advice on how I could make the 00-99 PAO system more useful when it comes to association, or maybe you think I should just not worry about the 00-99 system and instead focus on creating images with the simple major system?
I guess the thing you should figure out is how you are organizing this info. Are you trying to collect interesting facts about WWI or about events of note from a specific year, decade, century?
What would you use as a starting point when trying to recall this information? Your mnemonic scenes will look different if you want to use Franz Ferdinand as a starting point, as WW1 as a general topic as a starting point, or as a specific date structure to start.
Building in PAO keywords into your scenes is fine, but you need to make sure you’re able to figure out what they’re referring to. This is where memory palaces can help. Designating specific areas for specific topics and subtopics keeps your info organized.
Think of all your scenes as file names in a computer. If you have 100 files, all with descriptive filenames, thats cool, buf if they’re all just together on your desktop it can be tough to figure out where they belong. If you smartly name folders and subfolders to store them in, you can access them much easier and you can also infer the encoded relevance of their filenames much better.
I’d recommend trying a few different ways to encode several pieces of info. See which ones are easiest to retain and easiest for you to decode into their component parts. You will be the best judge of what will work best for you.
Apart from my 00-99 PAO, I also have 100 major system images.
So that date I would memorize the following way:
I start with PAO: 07 / 08 / 34
which for me is: Tony Stark / Putting Lipstick on / a Batarang
Then 19 in my major system is “TaPe” so I would visualize the whole scene with PAO as described above but will also imagine the whole scene is wrapped in tape and that the character is so wrapped up in tape that it struggles to breathe. I would use all the senses within the scene etc… it would be so damn memorable!
Your brain would know that the only missing piece of the puzzle of “07 / 08 / 34” is 19 so the major system image would come as a logical anchor for you to remember the full date.