How to memorise (almost) anything you read in 20 minutes

0:00 – 10:28

Why memorizing everything turns into a trap

He opens with a bold claim that sounds almost suspiciously efficient: more than 150 facts memorized in about 2 hours, with over 90% retention lasting more than 5 years. But instead of jumping straight to a trick, he starts with the mistake that made memorization feel impossible in the first place. In his early university and medical school years, he felt the same pressure many students feel: there is so much to remember, so the answer must be to find the fastest possible memorization tool. For him, that became flashcards. They were quick to make, especially because each sentence could become a card, but that speed hid a nasty math problem. If you learn 100 new facts in a day, and each one needs 2 to 5 repetitions to stick, you are handing your future self roughly 500 extra reviews. Then you do it again tomorrow. What looked efficient becomes what his students call "Anki hell," an endless hamster wheel where something is always due. The unexpected angle is that he separates memory from memorization. Memory is simply having something available in your mind. Memorization, at least in the way most students use the word, usually means rote repetition, dull, passive review. And he argues that rote repetition is actually an inefficient way to build lasting memory. Most of what we remember in real life was never drilled into us over and over. We remember it because it meant something, connected to something, or fit into a bigger mental map. That leads to his most important tool, the memorization filter. Before trying to memorize a fact, he asks three questions in order. First, do I understand why this fact matters? If not, look it up. Second, is it similar or related to anything I already know? If not, actively search for an analogy or connection. Third, do I need high level mastery, meaning not just recall but flexible use in problem solving? If the answer is yes, rote memory is the wrong main strategy. Only if a fact stays disconnected and only needs low level recall does it earn a place in the memorization bucket. To make this concrete, he uses the idea of schema, your existing web of knowledge. Facts tied into that web fade slowly. Facts floating far away from it feel random, so the brain treats them like wasted energy and drops them. His Dynasty Warriors example makes this memorable. Because he had spent years playing a game set in wartime China, names, battles, and historical figures that might have been dry textbook material later felt familiar and easy to retain. The game had built the hooks first. Once he started using this filter in his fourth year of university, his daily flashcards dropped by 80%, and, counterintuitively, his memory improved dramatically.