How To Memorize Anything Instantly

- This is me trying to recite the order of full shuffled deck of cards from memory. - Four of diamonds. - Nope! Until very recently would have thought that was not possible. Because my memory is trash. I'm admittedly one of those people that will forget your name five seconds after you walk away from me. Look, I'm sorry. But every few months or so find new article or video that makes me think might just be doing it wrong. - You do not have bad memory. Your memory is million times better than you think it is. - Check it. This is 60 digits of pi and it took me like five minutes. - Turns out there's no such thing as terrible memory. Only an untrained one. - T1J: So researched the techniques that literal memory champions use to see if could somehow apply it to my life. And if not, maybe could at least get cool party trick out of it. (game show music) - Announcer: And now it's time to play... - Audience: What's That Name?! There's this great game show sketch from SNL where the contestants are humiliated because they can't remember the names of people they've met. - We've gone out to dinner 20 times and sat next to each other at multiple weddings. What's my name? But as far as can tell, most people are bad at remembering names. Here's the thing. Most of y'all ain't that memorable. I'm just kidding. You're all complex, beautiful individuals. But most of your names aren't that memorable. As far as our brains are concerned, name is just an arbitrary group of symbols and sounds. It only gains meaning when those sounds are linked to something interesting or important. For example, if you tell me your name is Kevin, I'll probably remember that because that's also my name. No, it doesn't say T1J on my birth certificate. once met real life couple named Bella and Edward. I'm not making that up. Although it just occurred to me that they may have been f**ing with me. Either way, will never forget those names. But when hear stranger's name and have nothing memorable to link it to in my mind, my brain classifies it as disposable information. - T1J (offscreen): All right, so each of you have piece of paper. On this sheet of paper are 10 faces and each face has name. So it's that person's name. I'm going to give you 60 seconds to try to memorize as many of those names as you can. - John: already forgot em. (Carlton laughs) wanted to test how people use memory in common situation like remembering the name of someone you just met. (phone alarm rings) All right, flip it back over. So now I'm going to give you five minutes to try to recall as many as you can. And can't bring myself to be the kind of YouTuber that shoves camera into random people's faces in public. So decided to simulate the experiment. Carlton didn't do so well at this test. And how many did you get? - got like three? Dang. was basically just listing names in my head. Were you just like repeating them in your head? Pretty much, yeah. think most people would get more than three. Maybe he was tired or something. But also think that most people would use similar method. Carlton used what we call rote memorization, which is basically memorization through repetition. Repetition can work, but the problem is you need lot of time. But we don't always have enough time to drill information into our heads. We have fleeting moments and distractions and deadlines, or an annoying older brother telling you that you only have 60 seconds. In those cases, repetition is actually the worst way to try to remember something. So you got em all. And you said you had tactic? What was your tactic? - This was Colin Powell. - It does kinda look like Colin Powell. (Carlton laughs) - This is Marvin Gaye, little kid Marvin Gaye. know someone named Isaac, so remember his old dude was Isaac. - So would you say like for each person, you either came up with an image or sound to associate with it, basically? Yeah. Human brains are much better at memorizing images and scenes. guess because those aren't abstract. They actually reference and represent tangible things that are already stored in our memory. So the best way to remember something is not to try and jackhammer it into your mind, but instead to link that information to an image because our brains are just better at that. Now, of course, sometimes this happens naturally, like when some people you meet remind you of weird movie. But if that doesn't happen, then we have to intentionally create kind of an artificial link ourselves. Memorizing names and faces is actually an event they do at real memory competitions. That's kind of where got the idea. So naturally, memory experts have come up with way to do pretty much what John did just in quicker, more systematic way. To memorize names and faces, pick feature on the face that stands out to you most, accentuate that feature. And then you're going to take the person's name, linking that name to that feature. So for example, if we wanted to remember that this person's name is Lily, we could pick prominent feature like her nose and imagine large lily on top of her nose. Or if you wanted to remember that his name is Carlton, you could imagine little guy on his face curling ton. It's silly, but you'll remember it. It's actually little bit creepy how well this works. There's website where you can practice the names and faces test. And after like an hour of practice, can consistently get 10 out of 10 in 60 seconds using this technique. Well, close enough in my book. also went ahead and did 11 because I'm petty and didn't want my brother to keep the high score Again, close enough. But those memory experts, apparently they're called mnemonists. They've come up with all kinds of techniques for memorizing words, numbers, and basically whatever you need if you, like, really want to get good at this. But do think that for most people in their everyday lives, simply learning to link information to images in their mind will make memorizing small things way, way easier. But I'm not most people. also wanted to learn to use these techniques to do something cool and impressive so can show off because crave attention. And within the memory community, one of the classic challenges is memorizing the order of shuffled deck of cards. Now that's good party trick. Memorizing few names is pretty easy, but memorizing an entire sequence of 52 cards is going to require more complex technique. - It's called the memory palace. - The mind palace. - The memory palace. - The memory palace technique. - What is mind palace? - Get out. - What? - Get out. need to go to my mind palace. The memory palace is kind of like going from 2D to 3D in your mind. And our brains are actually pretty good at remembering 3D spaces that we've been in. Like if you had to walk through your home in the dark, you could probably do it. (loud thud) - Ow! - For the most part. So first have to imagine location that's familiar to me like my apartment or my neighborhood. This will be my memory palace. It could even be virtual location just so long as can accurately picture it in my head. In the same way created mental images to coincide with names, also had to come up with unique image for each of the 52 cards. That sounds like lot of work, but it's not too bad if you group things together. Like chose to associate all of the spades with comic book characters. So for example, the image that have for the four of spades is Rocket Raccoon. So then just have to place that and all my other images in the correct order within the memory palace, which should then help me remember the correct order of the cards. This might sound weird, but have been practicing it and it definitely works. And it turns out if you're dedicated enough, you can use this technique to memorize an insane amount of information. Sabrina from Answer in Progress used the memory palace to memorize over 3000 digits of pi. Graham Siggins used this technique to solve 250 Rubik's cubes blindfolded. Surely can memorize 52 cards. So just gave you all very basic explanation of the technique I'm using in my attempt to memorize the deck, but there's actually lot more to it. All of my tens are something that starts with So 10 of diamonds is Sylvester Stallone. 10 of spades is Superman. just think it would make the video kind of drag on too long. If you're curious though, check out the pinned comment or notes below the video for the full detailed explanation. Now let's see if can actually do this. - And you'll have to tell me if I'm wrong. All right, we have four of hearts. We have 10 of spades. We have... Nine of diamonds. Eight of clubs. Yeah, two of clubs. Seven of hearts. Six of hearts. Queen of spades. King of diamonds. Three of clubs. Is that right? - Yep. - Two of hearts. Ace of hearts. Then queen of diamonds. - Just like anything else, this is something you get better at the more you practice. So when you're newbie like me, sometimes you run into trouble. - my God, can't remember. my God, what was it? And literally remember everything except the next two cards. Since I'm memorizing images and locations and not really list of cards, it's actually pretty easy to skip ahead. So decided to try that and come back to the cards was struggling with later. So after that, know is eight of spades. Is that right? - Yep. - Queen of hearts. Four of diamonds. - No. - That's wrong? - Yeah. - It's no... It still counts. It's the ten of diamonds. - Yeah. - My bad. Okay, and then jack of hearts. Jack of hearts. Five of spades. And then ace of clubs. - Yep. - But what are those other two cards? pretty much had to go through the whole deck in my mind until got to the cards hadn't said yet. But that is another thing that is much easier to do if you're working with vivid images instead of numbers and suits. don't know why it just completely left my mind, but got it now. Okay, so it's ace of diamonds. think put these in the right order. Ace of diamonds and jack of diamonds. Jesus! (laughs) Does that count? It's true lot of the time that the best way to do something is often counter-intuitive or surprising at first. So think expecting that to happen in and of itself makes it easier to pick up new skills. And it just so happens that the best way to memorize pretty much anything is to think about something else. Go figure. So have confession. I'm often little hesitant to give to charity because feel like don't know where my money's going or if it's going to be put to good use. And even when put the effort in to try to research these organizations, sometimes it's still hard to find real objective information. 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If it's your first time donating using GiveWell and you do so before the end of the year, you can have your donation matched up to $100 or as long as matching funds last. In order to claim your match, make sure you select YouTube and enter T1J at checkout. Again that website is givewell.org. Thanks for watching this video. In my last video, learned how to get good at Scrabble, which is game that actually requires lot of memorization. Check it out if you like. The link is on the screen. But outside of that, that's the end of the video. Stay Hako. Bye bye.