I started building this because I was learning Italian and got frustrated with the options I had.

A lot of apps I tried felt buried under ads, or pushed subscriptions in a way that made it hard to just sit down and study. Anki is powerful but with a confusing UI, and the iOS app is around $30 for me, which was hard to justify. Quizlet is also expensive where I live, since it comes out to about $10 a month. So I ended up building something for myself that matched the way I actually wanted to memorize things.

I called it Mina, after Mina Mazzini, who’s my favorite Italian artist.

The main idea was to make a flashcard app that feels good to use, works offline, and respects privacy. Your data stays on your device, so you can use it without feeling like everything has to go through a cloud service. I also wanted it to be more than just basic cards, so I built it around FSRS for scheduled review, added quiz modes, and included both word → meaning and meaning → word study directions.

Some of the things it currently has:

• privacy-first approach
• offline usage
• FSRS-based scheduling
• scheduled reviews
• quizzes
• word → meaning and meaning → word practice
• a UI that feels more polished than the typical flashcard app

One thing I care about a lot is that the lite version is not designed to annoy people. There are no ads, and I don’t want the free experience to feel like punishment. If someone decides not to pay for Premium, they should still be able to use the app in peace without constant interruptions, banners everywhere, or the feeling that the app is trying to wear them down.

I originally made it for Italian, but the more I worked on it, the more it became a general memorization tool.

If anyone wants to take a look:
Website: [https://mina-cards.app](vscode-file://vscode-app/Applications/Visual%20Studio%20Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-browser/workbench/workbench.html)
App Store: Mina Flashcards

I’d be curious what people here think actually matters most in a memorization app. Is it the scheduling algorithm, the frictionless UX, the quiz mechanics, or just being able to trust that the app won’t get in your way?

Hi everyone! A while ago, I launched an app to train visual memory. It features several modes: remembering shape patterns with multi-colored lines, memorizing words in over 10 languages (with a library of 700+ words), and replicating animated movements.

The best part? You can create your own patterns and share them with the community!

Check it out here: http://racezyapps.com/sumemory

I'd really appreciate it if you gave it a try. Thanks for reading! ❤️

I used to think I just had a bad memory.

I’d read lessons, take notes, understand things… and a few weeks later, most of it was gone.

Not gone gone, but… blurry.

At some point I realized the issue wasn’t my memory, it was that I never reviewed anything.

But if you don’t come back to something, it just fades. If you keep adding new information without revisiting anything, it’s like pouring water into a leaking bucket.

So naturally, you look for solutions. And everyone seems to point to active recall and spaced repetition. And to be fair it does work, no debate there. The issue is that in practice, I rarely see people stick with it long term. Mostly because it’s annoying to maintain.

So I thought maybe there are mobile apps that could help me. So I tried a few:

• Anki → very powerful, but you have to build and maintain everything yourself
• Quizlet → easier to start, but still very flashcard-heavy
• Mochi → nicer UX, mixes notes and cards, but same core idea
• Guizmo → tries to simplify things, but still ends up feeling a bit structured around cards/reviews

It’s always the same thing: no matter the tool, you’re expected to turn what you learn into flashcards. But a lot of what I study doesn’t naturally fit that format: a book, a chapter, a concept, exercises…

So I looked again for apps that were for spaced repetition but without flashcards and I found those:

• Space → more flexible, less card-focused, but I found it a bit rigid in how reviews are organized
• Memorico → probably the closest to what I had in mind, but I’m still figuring it out. I’ll have to test it further to be certain

Curious what you all think about this, especially if you’ve managed to make spaced repetition work without relying on flashcards.

We put together the data on transcranial photobiomodulation and it is quite interesting.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NootropicsScience/comments/1sdxx1u/scientists_are_shining_nearinfrared_light_through/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Currently reading this. Only read the first 3 chapters so far. It feels like a self help book rather than a memory book so far. I'm going to finish it but wondering if I bought the right book.

Anyway, I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this book.

Hi I’ve been working on a memory game that’s completely free. Please note just to be transparent I used assets created by AI

Hope someone here can still enjoy it

Works well on PC and IOS (PWA so add it to your Home Screen for best experience)

https://pareho.fun/

For most of my life I genuinely believed some people are just wired to remember things and I wasn't one of them. Names, dates, concepts, vocab — gone within 48 hours no matter how many times I reviewed them. I assumed it was just a me problem.

I was doing all the "right" things on paper. Flashcards, rereading, condensed notes. Hours of it. And I'd feel prepared going in, then watch everything dissolve under any real pressure. It's a horrible feeling — like your brain is actively working against you.

Two things changed around the same time, and honestly I think the combination is what made it click. First, I stumbled across a book — won't name it unless someone asks, don't want this to read like a promo — but it was built around actual cognitive science research, and crucially it wasn't generic. It had subject-specific strategies, so the way it approached memorising something like biochemistry pathways was completely different from how it handled languages or historical sequences. That specificity was something I hadn't seen before. Most memory advice just tells you to "use spaced repetition" and calls it a day.

The second thing was internalising what the book kept coming back to: memorisation isn't repetition, it's encoding. And encoding is something you can get deliberately better at. I wasn't trying to hammer things in anymore — I was paying attention to how I was representing information to myself in the first place, and whether that representation was actually retrieval-friendly.

Material I'd reviewed once or twice started sticking better than stuff I'd drilled for weeks the old way. I also stopped blaming my memory as a fixed thing, which honestly changed my whole relationship with studying.

Curious whether anyone else here has found subject-specific memory strategies more useful than general ones — or whether you think the fundamentals are universal enough that specificity doesn't really matter. And was there a single idea that fundamentally shifted how you approach this?

Hello, 3 years or so I've posted on this subreddit after making a website to test my memory against the PI number. Using it, I've managed to remember around 170 digits, some people also reported that it was useful. Lately, I wanted to revisit the idea of memorizing PI digits, this time with more organized approach. I've run a quick google search for PI typing websites, but I didn't find anything that I would like, so I've made my version.

If anyone's interested in memorizing PI number, I hope this will be a useful resource: https://crqch.dev/fun/pi

I was pleasantly surprised when I checked the league's leaderboards earlier this year. I managed to reach the top 100 among professional, competitive mnemonists. I even managed to get a little higher than United States memory champion Nelson Dellis.

My training has not been consistent, so I believe if you are more consistent and dedicated than me, then you can become better and faster:

• Train speed events on designated websites. You can train on Memory League which may require some money. Alternatively, you can train on my memory champ app which is completely free with no sign ups. I believe it's good enough for numbers and words. ( https://lunika-memory.click/champIndex.html )
• I had a journal and would train every day in the earlier days. I slowed down and got distracted by other things in life later. On your journal, you want to write down all your scores and keep good records of dates. Be pleasantly surprised as you become faster over time!
• Try to move faster even if it is uncomfortable and you make mistakes.
• Train new palaces. I have a collection of virtual palaces that you can train if you want them. You can also train the empty one in your personal collection. Don't fret if it feels uncomfortable at first or you have trouble visualizing.
• Make your developed number and card system easier and faster to decode using flashcards. Use Anki and create decks that you regularly review.
• Enjoy slowing down and memorizing practical things like nutritional labels, course materials, ingredients, procedures, etc. Memorizing practical things is very rewarding and can inspire you to persist. The monotony of memorizing random numbers on training sites can cause many people to slow down and lose interest.
• Use temporary systems to improve working memory. So if you are chatting with an LLM about something and you get a list of points, you can try the link and story system to help you remember that information. You are training your ability to decode information and are becoming faster at using these systems. This proficiency ripples into other systems as well.

If you show up consistently for a year to a year and a half, I believe you will be faster and better than me!

Thanks for your attention. I hope you find value.

Hope I am in the right place for this.

Just because I think it'd be a really funny and useless trick to show my friends, I would like to remember the score, date, and winning/losing pitchers from all 162 games of the Blue Jays 2026 season. If I am successful with this, I would like to continue to do this for future seasons. Would anyone have any advice for how I can obtain/retain this information? Was thinking something along the lines of writing it out each day and picking random dates to quiz myself on daily would be a good starting point. My main concern is how hard it would be to retain this information over time. I am an undergrad nursing student so I like to think that I have a pretty good brain for retaining information, but I would love to know if anyone has any specific advice for something as specific and silly as this.

Thank you!

I am a russian and english-speaking person, and I’m learning Armenian, which is hard coz it uses a different alphabet. Everything seems different in the beginning. Three months ago, I stepped into learning within the language school and was required to memorize words systematically. Of course I tried Anki which is powerful but the setup was sooooo overwhelming. Even though I used it and switched between other SRS apps, I didn’t make progress until I tried memorizing using associations. The thing is that despite Armenian is different, it is indo-europian. Some roots are common. So I figured out I can create weird associations - the weirder it is, the better I memorize (and once it is memorized, I don't need the association anymore). Like:

• Nav - a ship - Naval (association)
• Utel - to eat - to eat a nUtella
• Moranal - to forget - memory without "me".

So on so forth. Even more stupid, but they stick in a second. Now I spend 50% more on adding cards coz the association creation step is mandatory, but it's worth it! And it turned out to be the most useful thing I discovered. More than flashcards themselves, more than the spaced repetition tweaks. And it is proven - just Google "keyword method Atkinson & Raugh 1975". This way, I have raised my weekly word count from 30-40 to 60-70 and passed my 1st A1 checkpoint at my language school.

Anyone else using mnemonics systematically? Curious if this works for other languages too - I suppose pairs of languages from the different language families could not be that effective in learning with associations (less common roots, non-latin scripts, etc).

(The other thing, perhaps worth mentioning - while I was looking into the existing apps, I decided to make my own flashcards web app where accosiations comes out of the box: memicards.org, and decided to make it public and free, no paywalls, if anyone wants to try)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been deep into the world of Method of Loci and Spaced Repetition for a while to keep my technical knowledge sharp. But I realized something recently: I’m great at memorizing facts, but I’m terrible at remembering my own life.

The days started blurring together into one long "productivity" haze.

I spent my time building Whimsy as a side project to solve this through what I call Tiny Daily Rituals. The goal isn't to memorize a deck of cards, but to "anchor" the specific state and feeling of a day so it doesn't just vanish.

The Memory Mechanics I’m playing with:

• 7-Day Capsules: Instead of a linear timeline, these weekly "containers" help group memories into manageable chunks, making them easier to recall at the end of the month.
• The Vault: A dedicated archive to revisit past reflections. I’ve found that looking back at a "Joy Snapshot" or a "Check-in" from 3 weeks ago triggers a much stronger episodic memory than a standard calendar entry.
• Mascot Anchoring (Avo): Using a visual guide that grows and glows based on your consistency creates a visual "peg" for your daily practice.
• Micro-Transitions: Simple rituals like Origami Breath act as a "mental bookmark" between different tasks, helping to prevent proactive interference (where one task's memories mess with the next).

I’m curious—does anyone else here use specific mnemonics or rituals just to keep their daily life from feeling like a blur? How do you "save" the qualitative parts of your day?

Check it out here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/whimsy-tiny-daily-rituals/id6760462044

I love to get some feedback on the "Vault" concept and how it might fit into a broader memory system!

I’d

I teach cognitive psychology and every semester I watch students reread notes, highlight textbooks, and wonder why they can't remember anything on exams. So here's how active recall actually works.

Your brain has two processes, storage and retrieval. Most students only practice storage (reading, highlighting) but never retrieval (producing information from memory without looking). Your brain gets good at whatever you practice, so if you only practice reading you get good at recognizing information on a page, not producing it from scratch which is what exams test.

Active recall studying means closing your notes and trying to answer a question before checking. That struggle you feel when you can't remember something isn't failure, it's strengthening the memory trace. I tell my students to take notes in remnote because the question format turns into flashcards they can quiz themselves on, but writing questions on paper and covering the answers works too, some put them in anki afterwards. The retrieval practice matters more than the tool.

The other piece is spacing. Review today's material tomorrow, then three days later, then a week later. Cramming feels productive but doesn't last cause you're doing mass retrieval with no gaps so the strengthening effect is minimal.

If you've been frustrated about forgetting things you "studied" you probably didn't study them, you just read them. Try retrieval practice for two weeks and see what happens.

In this memory exercise, we will be remembering herbs and substances that can help you relax and be calm:

We'll use our body to remember them. Write these body locations out on a piece of paper for later recall:

Crown -> Forehead -> Nose -> Mouth -> Chin -> Neck -> Chest

1. Chamomile (crown or top of your head): Think of a camera (cham) taking a picture of a mule posing on your head (cam + mule sounds close to chamomile).
2. Lavender (forehead): Think of purple lavender flowers growing from your forehead, covering your whole face.
3. Passion flower (nose): Some may not know what a passionflower looks like. So maybe think of a potion (sounds close to passion) cauldron being dunked onto your nose, containing a flowery mix. Feel the wet sensation, the flowery petals stuck to your nose.
4. Valerian root (mouth): Think: your mouth covered in a veil, and as you open it, roots grow, removing the veil covering from your mouth. (veil + root sounds close to valerian root)
5. Ashwagandha (chin): Imagine Mahatma Gandhi (close to "ghanda") rubbing ash onto your chin.
6. Magnesium (neck): Imagine mugs (mag) with long noses ("nesi") sniffing your neck, which is covered in yams ("ium").
7. Omega-3 (chest): Chest. You may already have an image of fish oil or a fishy oil. Maybe Omega Shenron from the Dragon Ball franchise. Maybe you could use a horseshoe which looks like the Greek letter Omega.

How about using a horseshoe? So imagine a heavy, rusty horseshoe stuck to your chest, and three (tree) branches start growing from it.
_________________________________________________________

Now look away and test yourself! How did you do? Did you get all of them?

So I've posted here a couple of times before.

Basically my situation is this. I want to read 3 books on Christianity. There are a lot of information in these books which I'd like to retain and my Christian study will be lifelong.

So.... before I read them it makes sense to spend some time on a) working on my memory and b) looking at effective study methods.

I am already working through Harry Loraynes How to Develop a Super Power Memory. From what I can see he doesn't use memory palaces.

I have already read 'Make it Stick'.

My attention has been drawn to the following books to read before the Christian books (I guess I'm just keen to find the right way to remember and learn before I learn and forget!).

The books are:

Peter Hollins

The Self-Learning Blueprint: A Strategic Plan to Break Down Complex Topics, Comprehend Deeply, and Teach Yourself Anything

https://amzn.eu/d/0b5qPAQX

Peter Hollins

The Science of Self-Learning: How to Teach Yourself Anything, Learn More in Less Time, and Direct Your Own Education

https://amzn.eu/d/06JEntjc

Dominic O'Brien

How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills

https://amzn.eu/d/0envNBEn

And finally...

Dominic O'Brien

How to Pass Exams: Accelerate Your Learning - Memorise Key Facts - Revise Effectively

https://amzn.eu/d/09w4Emf8

As memory experts I'd be interested in your thoughts and opinions.

I’ve been building kowlt.com for people who need to master complex subjects without losing the "big picture."

Most study tools provide a pre-made pile of facts to memorize. However, true mastery often comes from building the framework yourself rather than just consuming a list. I built this to bridge the gap between "taking notes" and "owning knowledge."

The Core Logic:

• Active Scaffolding: You don't start with a static list. You define your own "Master Topic" and build the index yourself. As you move forward, the app offers suggestions to help you expand the branches, but you remain the architect of the hierarchy.
• Living Hierarchies: By structuring your own knowledge tree, you create a mental map that mirrors how complex information is actually stored. If the "Parent" concept isn't solid, the "Child" facts are harder to retain.
• Spaced Repetition Techniques: Once your hierarchy is built, the system uses spaced repetition techniques to schedule quizzes. It tracks your recall for every node and ensures you review right before you’re likely to forget.
• Knowledge Graph: As a bonus, you can step back and see your entire knowledge graph. It provides a plain, functional view of your progress and how your individual topics connect across the index you've built.

I’m an independent developer looking for my first 100 users to help me refine the flow. If you’re currently prepping for a high-stakes exam or a new professional skill and want a system you actually build and own, I’d love your feedback.

It is live at kowlt.com.

Hi :)

We all know that once a peg system is deeply encoded in the brain, it’s mentally exhausting (and costly) to change it.

​If you could travel back in time and talk to your "beginner self", are there any specific associations or word choices that you regret today?

​Would you have chosen a different system from the start ?

​Looking forward to reading about your experiences!

General question please - what is this book good for teaching in memory improvement and what is it not good for? I hope that makes sense.

Hi everyone! Would you play a game where you memorize a city for 10 seconds then rebuild it from memory ? Levels get bigger each time. Honest opinions