Alaina Kwiatkowski is practiced in memorization and has been using her skills to succeed in school for around eight years. Memorization is an excellent skill to have, especially when it comes to important information. It takes a lot of practice, but once you learn the skill, it can make ascertaining info much easier than it used to be.

It is best to start off with something easy, like a sequence of numbers or a page from a book. Kwiatkowski started off with the digits of pi. She started memorizing them for a contest in fifth grade, and she realized that it was something that she wanted to get better at. On her first try, she memorized 24 digits, then 120 digits on her second. It is important that you find joy in memorization. The process should be fun and something that you can do when you are bored.

Now, the process. There are a few different ways to memorize things well. The first is chunking. Let's say that you want to memorize the digits of pi. Write down six to ten numbers in a group together. The groups of digits will be easier to remember rather than writing them in a long list. Another way is writing it on a chalkboard, but still chunk the numbers together. With each of these ways, you should be saying them out loud and trying to make a pattern out of them. “Repetition is the way I memorized it best,” says Kwiatkowski. 

If these simple memorization techniques don’t work for you, you can try techniques that are a little more exciting. Write the digits on a piece of paper and place it by an object you use a lot, like a light switch or a sink. Every time you use that object, repeat the digits over and over again to make a rhythm. Another fun option is listening to music. If you want to memorize pi, Kwiatkowski suggests “The Pi Song.”

Memorization is a very applicable skill to have. You can memorize different complex things, and people might even be impressed with how fast you can relay certain information. Kwiatkowski personally used memorization to achieve a high score on her final exam for Medical Terminology, which requires knowing a lot of difficult terms and definitions. Memorization can improve your memory and you won’t have to write down information to remember it.