How to remember

anything
In this article I’m interviewing the two-time World Memory Champion:
Jonas von Essen from Sweden.

You will learn:

 How to remember a name

 How to remember what you read
 How to remember new words in a foreign language
 How to remember numbers
 How to remember things you have no interest in (for
school or work)
 The Method of Loci/Memory Palace technique
 Jonas favorite memory techniques
 The biggest memory mistakes most people make
Let’s begin:

How Jonas won the World Championships of

Memory
Michael Frank: Jonas, take us through your journey from being a
normal person with a normal memory, to winning the world
championships of memory…

Jonas von Essen: Well I pretty much went through my whole time in
school, just as a normal person and as a regular student. I studied a lot
for tests, and then I usually forgot a lot after the tests.

Michael Frank: Did you cram and study a lot at the last moment as I
did as many people do?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah, that was pretty much my strategy. I had a
terrible study technique and it led to some bad results. So that’s what I
did. I just didn’t know any better way of doing it. And when I finished
high school I knew a lot less than I should have done, but then I found
this book just by chance at a library, a book that said that anyone
could improve their memory with certain techniques, and I thought
that it sounded very interesting since I wasn’t very happy with my
memory at a time.

So I started to read this book and then just after the first chapter
trying out the basic memory techniques, I noticed that it was much
easier than I thought, it was so much fun, and suddenly I could
memorize a lot of things in a very short period of time. So I was really
hooked almost immediately by this book, and then I found out later
that there was competitions in memory and that there was a Swedish
memory championships, and I got interested in this, and then I started
to practice for this and I looked up the Swedish records and they
weren’t that high. So it really, almost from the beginning, felt within
reach.

Michael Frank: When you say the records were not that high, can you
give me an example of what they were, because I’m sure to many
people, they’re going to seem extremely high, but what kind of records
are we talking about?

Jonas von Essen: Well, for example, there is one discipline where your
memory is tested to see how many numbers you can remember in five
minutes, and I think that the record was about 180 or something, and
there is another discipline which is the same but with binary digits
only ones and zeros, and then the record was probably around 405
digits, and there’s some other ones with names and faces for example,
and I think the record was like 28 or 29 in five minutes. These of
course are not common names, they’re names from all over the place,
very unusual names, but still it didn’t sound like that much, and
especially when you knew that these techniques existed and they
seem so extremely promising, so I really felt that if I put a lot of effort
into it during the summer, then that I can possibly beat these records
and become the Swedish champion.

Michael Frank: Those numbers, I must be honest, sound really

intimidating. One hundred and eighty numbers in five minutes?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah

Michael Frank: What was the name of the memory book you read by
the way?

Jonas von Essen: It was a book by a Norwegian guy Oddbjør By, the
book is called Memo. I think it also exists in English, but I’m not
sure, but it’s popular in the Nordic countries.
Michael Frank: So when you had completed reading the book, prior to
trying to break this Swedish record, approximately how many
consecutive random numbers were you able to recall approximately?

Jonas von Essen: While I was reading through the book, I also did all
the exercises, and I was practicing quite a bit on the techniques. I
think when I was finished I could memorize at least, if I were lucky,
maybe 100 digits in five minutes, and that was really without much
training. Of course I did some training while reading the book and I got
used to this system, but I felt that I had so much more potential in me.

Michael Frank: My jaw is hitting the floor. 100 digits in five minutes?
And this is after just a couple of weeks reading the book? I think a
regular person, like if you gave me random numbers, and I consider my
memory to be better than average, nothing compared to yours but, I
think I could probably recall maybe seven numbers, maybe ten.

Jonas von Essen: So of course I was really extremely motivated by

having achieved such enormous progress in such a short amount of
time, because of course for me it would have been impossible to
remember hundreds of numbers without these techniques. So I was so
fascinated about this and since I felt that these Swedish records were
in reach, I started practicing a lot of hours everyday during the
summer holidays, and I kept records and little progress bars to see my
progress, and then I got closer and closer to the records, and then I
beat one of the records and then another, and then another, and I felt
so great, I really felt that I was on my way to becoming the new
Swedish champion.

So I started breaking one record at a time, I wasn’t that concerned

about beating it by a big margin, so maybe I raised the record from 180
to 200 or 400 binary digits to 500 binary digits or something like that,
so I was just improving the records by a little bit, but then one month
before the Swedish national championships I was contacted by the
guy arranging the championships, and he told me that there was
another guy who had also very recently started practicing memory
techniques, and is going to take part who had these amazing records
and could beat the world record in some disciplines, and I was very
shocked because all the time in my head I just thought about beating
this old Swedish champion who had already won the championships
three times in a row, and I thought that it was very unlikely that
someone else would also at the same time start with this and also get
great results, so then I was very afraid that all this work that I put in
would be, not for nothing of course, but I still wouldn’t get this victory
that I felt quite confident about at this time.

Michael Frank: Jonas, at that stage, how many hours a day were you
practicing?

Jonas von Essen: I think at that stage I was practicing maybe three or
four hours a day, sometimes less, sometimes more, if I really had a lot
of time and there’s not much else to do, then I could sit for almost
almost a whole day because it was so much fun, and like all the time
in the beginning, almost every time I improved. So I knew if I just tried
this discipline, maybe a few more times that I would probably beat my
own records, so it was extremely motivating to do this and I got such a
kick out of continuously improving these results and suddenly getting
the highest scores.

Michael Frank: Were you practicing in the morning? In the afternoon?

In the evening? When did you tend to practice?

Jonas von Essen: I think at this time I really spread it out over the
day. Like sometimes because it was during the summer, then maybe
we went swimming somewhere in the morning or in the middle of the
day, and then I practiced later. Or sometimes we would do something
and meet with some friends in the evening and then I practiced a little
bit earlier, so I didn’t have a very clear strategy for this, I just
practiced when I had time.

Michael Frank: Okay. So you’re going towards the Swedish national

championships. Take us through your journey from breaking the
national records to trying to win the championship.
Jonas von Essen: Yeah. So I think it was very important that I heard
about this other person. His name is Marwin Wallonius he is also
a very prominent mental athlete, but at this time he was also
completely new, and hearing about him challenging my position as the
Swedish number one, I didn’t know exactly what to do, because I
thought that maybe I didn’t have a chance anymore, but I was still
really determined to do everything I could to at least have some
possibility of beating him. So at the time I started practicing a lot
more, maybe five or six hours everyday, and I also practiced in a very
new way, because as I said before, I was just happy or content to be
able to beat the old records by a little bit, but now I realized that I had
to really aim at the world records and try to get impossible scores to
have any chance of beating Marwin.
So I started practicing and trying to get my speed up and I aimed at
impossible scores and this really made me improve a lot quicker. So in
the last month before the championships, I made really the biggest
part of my improvement and I started to reach world standards in
some disciplines. I was of course still apart from a world champion
quality, but in some disciplines I got close to the world record, so this
really made a big difference for me. And then I went to the Swedish
championships and Marwin was also there, and of course both of us
beat the old records by a big margin, but Marvin wasn’t quite as good
as I had heard, or as the rumors went, so I managed to beat him, and
of course it was very happy about it.

Michael Frank: Was Marvin breaking these Swedish records that you
had set? What made you so afraid that he might beat you?

Jonas von Essen: I think what made me afraid was the guy arranging
the championships. He told me that Marwin had told him that he had
broken some of the world records during training, and so I was of
course quite sure that he had extremely good scores, and I do think
that he had some good scores, but he was also very unused to
competing, and maybe in some of the disciplines he had trained not
exactly as they are in a competition. And so when it was real he
wasn’t as good, but he was still very good and he also broke many of
the old Swedish records.

Michael Frank: So what did you need to do specifically to win the

Swedish National Championships of Memory?
Jonas von Essen: These memory competitions are usually like a
decathlon, they have ten different disciplines with different things to
memorize. For example: numbers or names or words or playing cards,
and when you memorize each particular thing for some time, say five
minutes or 15 minutes, or if it’s in the world championships it can be
up to one hour, then you get a score depending on how much you
memorized and then you get your total score at the end, and then from
all of the disciplines they decide who will be the winner.

Michael Frank: What were the hardest things you needed to do? How
many binary digits did you need to remember? How many numbers did
you need to recall? How many images or words or names did you have
to remember?

Jonas von Essen: Usually you get more information then you can
memorize so that you can just go for as much as you’d like. So for
example, in binary digits I think you got maybe twelve hundred binary
digits, and then you’re supposed to memorize as many as possible, and
of course at this time I didn’t look at all of those twelve hundred digits,
maybe I looked at, I don’t know, eight hundred, something like that,
and then I forgot some, I think that my score was around 670 or
something like that, so that was one thing. And there’s one discipline
called abstract images where you’re supposed to memorize small dots
of ink in sequence, and my score was I think about 280 or something
like that in 15 minutes, and I also memorized a deck of playing cards in
one minute, and these were the kinds of scores that I had to perform
to win.

Michael Frank: These are insane stats. It’s amazing. So you win the
Swedish National Championships, then you set your eyes on the prize,
the World Championships of Memory, take us through that journey.

Jonas von Essen: Yeah. Of course it felt so great to win the Swedish
National Championships, especially since I had aimed and hoped for it
all summer, then I got this thing with Marwin and thought that maybe
it wouldn’t work, but then it worked out anyway, and also the Marwin
thing also made me improve a lot. So now I was suddenly quite high on
the world ranking list. And before I had just thought that I would try to
win the Swedish National Championships and then maybe I would
write a book and then I will be happy just being the Swedish champion
in something. But since it went so well I thought okay now I can
maybe start competing in some international competitions, and I
started to do this and it also went quite well and I started to meet
other people and it was a lot of fun to compete with them, and I went
to the World Memory Championships about three months later in
London, and I was almost one of the favorites, or at least a big threat
to most of the more experienced athletes. At this first championship I
managed to get a bronze medal, and it felt really good to be able to
compete with the best. I was still some distance from the very, very
best, but at least I was on my way. And that made me very motivated
to continue to practice and to compete in extreme matches the
following year, and to prepare for the next years world memory
championships.

Michael Frank: So this is back in 2012, correct?

Jonas von Essen: Yes.

Michael Frank: And so how long from when you had read that book
until you’d come third in the world and won the bronze medal? How
long was that process approximately?

Jonas von Essen: It was about seven or eight months.

Michael Frank: That’s ridiculous. So less than a year from having a

regular memory to being third in the world.

Jonas von Essen: Yeah. So I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I
was so motivated the whole time. First it was the Swedish records
that were in reach, and then Marwin made me push myself to another
level, then I always had a new competition to train for and some new
records to try to beat, and I was always extremely motivated to keep
on going. And then in the following year I was started to travel around,
mostly in Europe to different memory competitions like the Italian
open, Welsh open, UK open, things like that, and I won quite a lot of
them. And I continued to improve my scores and climb even higher on
the World ranking list. I think at this point I also even managed to
break at least one world record, and then I was very excited about the
World Memory Championships in 2013 because I had prepared so
much, and I really thought that with some luck I could beat the
previous world champion and maybe become the new one.
Michael Frank: So how did your training change from winning the
bronze? Did you just do more of the same? Or did you change your
daily routine? What changed in your training from winning the bronze
medal to going for the gold?

Jonas von Essen: Well I think I was training more deliberately. I made
a very clear schedule that I followed everyday, and I started to train
these longer disciplines even more because as I said, at the Swedish
championships, we had five minute and 15 minutes disciplines, but in
the World Memory Championships, it’s 30 minutes or one hour
disciplines. This of course is more difficult to practice and it takes
more time and you need different kinds of skills for that.

So I started practicing a lot, and I also started very early on in the

year, not just before the World Memory Championships, but during the
whole year I practiced these long distance exercises and figured out
the best strategies for getting high scores, and this of course takes a
lot of time because if you have a five minute discipline you can
practice it maybe ten or twenty times in one day and try different
strategies and see which one works best. But if you have one hour
disciplines then maybe you can only practice it once every day, and
then it takes a lot of time to really find out what is the best way of
doing it. So that’s one thing I did. But I think my biggest idea that I got
was from talking to Marwin before the Swedish memory
championships, and that’s when I knew that I had to really, really push
myself, and not just to stare at the current records, or at my current
records, but just aim for the impossible and always try to go faster
than I could, and so I was continuously pushing myself. I think that
was the best way for me to reach new levels.

Michael Frank: Are you and Marwin friends now? Or are you just rivals?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah we’re good friends now. We always had this
rivalry and I was always a little bit ahead of him. He was also getting
great results and it was a little bit sad for him that I was just a little bit
better all the time because then I got a lot of attention in the media in
Sweden and at the championships as well. Although he was also really
amazing and also made this great improvement in a very short time,
and then we competed together in the team championships and won a
team gold for Sweden, and we also discussed strategies and things
like that a lot. So we’re more friends than rivals.

Michael Frank: But the competition certainly made you sharper and
hungrier and better.

Jonas von Essen: Yeah, definitely. And I think now because I’m not
competing that much, I’m almost not competing at all at the moment,
but Marwin has continued to compete and his scores are now really,
really amazing. And I think it’s quite likely that he will also become the
World Memory Champion sometime in the future.

Michael Frank: So you won the World Memory Championships in 2013

and 2014. What kind of tests did you have to pass? How many numbers
did you need to recall? How many images, how many cards, how many
names?

Jonas von Essen: It’s a lot of fun to talk about this, because it always
sounds better when you talk about the World Memory Championships,
because we have these long disciplines so you can really demonstrate
how much is actually possible to memorize when you get a little bit
more time. So for example, in the binary event, you get 30 minutes to
memorize as many ones and zeros as possible. And for me I got too
close to 4,000. I didn’t quite reach it, but I think my best was 3,841.
And then in playing cards, they give you one hour to memorize as many
playing cards as possible, shuffled decks of cards, and my record was
about 25 decks of cards, about 1,400 playing cards shuffled. And then
probably the one that sounds most impressive, is that we had this one
discipline that I like a lot called spoken numbers. So instead of reading
the numbers, you hear them read out to you at one per second. And I
think this is one of the most extreme disciplines because in this
discipline you have to really focus all the time and you only hear these
digits once, and then you have to just memorize them, and then
continue and continue and continue and if you just lose your focus for
a few seconds then you’re out. So it’s an extremely challenging
discipline. And at the World Memory Championships the last time I
managed to memorize a little bit more than 300 spoken digits, so it’s
five minutes of continuous spoken digits.
Michael Frank: That’s ridiculous Jonas! (Laughs) You can’t tune out for
even a second, if your mind wanders, if you don’t concentrate and stay
in the zone, then you’re out.

Jonas von Essen: Yeah exactly. The first digits you heard them five
minutes ago but you can’t keep thinking about them, you just think
about them very quickly, and it should be impossible, but through
these memory techniques it’s possible to somehow push them very
quickly into the long term memory so that you can still retrieve them.

Michael Frank: We’re gonna get to some of these memory techniques

in a bit and I can’t wait to unpack them. But before we do: What would
you say would be your most impressive memory feats?

Jonas von Essen: I think that probably my biggest memory feat so far
was on this year’s Sweden’s got talent. I managed to get to the
finals, and I really wanted to do something very, very big. So I
memorized the first 50,000 decimals of Pi, and that felt very cool
because when you see all of these numbers, it’s almost impossible to
look at them all at the same time, it’s such a huge amount of
information, and it would be completely impossible of course without
these techniques, but with these techniques not only can you
memorize them, but you also get a very high amount of control over
them. So in this show, they tested me by just going in somewhere
random in the sequence of 50,000 numbers and then reading nine
digits somewhere, and then I had to recognize where in the sequence
they were, and tell them what was before and after these particular
nine digits. I think this was probably the coolest display of memory
techniques that I’ve done so far.
Michael Frank: Do you get nervous before these championships? What
do you do to calm your nerves when you’re competing to stay in the
zone?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah, I definitely get nervous. Especially when it’s at
the end of the championships when there’s so much at stake. I think
my best way of dealing with it is mostly before the competition, just to
prepare as much as possible, and to try to practice with the same
settings as would be in the real championship, and to make it as real
as possible so that I’m not surprised when I get to the championships.
It shouldn’t feel like a new situation, but something that I’ve mentally
prepared for months before. I think that’s the best way of preparing
and that of course makes me less nervous because then I know
exactly what to do, and I know exactly what I can expect from myself.
I still obviously get nervous anyway to some extent and it’s sometimes
hard to deal with, but I just try to completely focus on the things I’m
going to memorize and really get into it. Because I think that once you
get into it, when you get into this flow, and just go through it and
memorize it, and then it’s very easy to keep focusing and then you
usually don’t get distracted, but it’s before you get into that flow then
it’s a bit risky.

Michael Frank: I’m not sure if this is a myth or not, but is it true that
we remember everything, that we never forget anything, and that it’s
just a matter of recall?

Jonas von Essen: I’m not sure. I’ve also heard about this, but in other
places I’ve read that it’s not true. I’m not extremely knowledgeable
about all the latest memory research unfortunately, but I think at least
for all practical reasons, we can view it as not true, that we can’t
remember everything because even if it’s true that we have it
somewhere in our heads, we can’t reach it. And then of course it’s just
as if it’s forgotten.

Why some people have better memories than

others
Michael Frank: Why do you think some people just naturally seem to
have better memories than others?

Jonas von Essen: I think there a lot of reasons for that. I think one
reason is probably that they automatically, or through intuition, or just
through sheer luck, have found some strategies or techniques for
remembering that they use maybe without thinking about it, but that
work well. Maybe they’re not doing it consciously, but they’re still
doing it, while other people use worse strategies. So I think that’s one
of the things that they’ve just been lucky to having started thinking in
a certain way that has made them remember things better.

Another thing is that usually we remember things we’re very interested

in a lot better than other stuff. So maybe some people are just
generally more interested in things, and then of course they will
remember those things more easily. So that’s one thing that makes it
seem as if some people have much better memories than others. But
in many cases, maybe they’re just more interested in it. So I think that
these are possible explanations. Their might also of course be some
structural brain differences, but I think that this is only a small part of
the answer to your question.

Recalling words vs numbers

Michael Frank: Is it easier for the brain to recall words or numbers?

Jonas von Essen: I think it really depends a lot on the owner of the
brain, because it has a lot to do with how you think. For someone very
interested in numbers, say a mathematician for example, they
probably see a lot of patterns in numbers so it’s not just random for
them. When they see a number they can associate it to a lot of things
and somehow it makes sense for them. And then of course it’s much
easier to remember it. While for other people it’s much easier to
remember words because words have a lot of meaning in them, and I
think it really depends on the context, like what kind of numbers and
what kinds of words are we talking about? Because the more
meaningful it is for the one trying to memorize them, the better it will
stick.

Michael Frank: Emotional things seem to lock into our brains. For
example, if someone has a traumatic experience, that seems to lock
into the brain. Do we know why emotional events seem to be retained
more than others?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah, I think that there’s quite a consensus about
that because it’s also evolutionary. Of course, if something really
dramatic happens to you, then it’s probably quite a big event and it’s
something that will affect you, and it also might affect you sometime
in the future, and so it’s very good for you if you remember that this
happened and you can adjust to it later on. So it’s simply that this is
something that your brain is programmed to really take very seriously
and it really stores it so that you can use it later, while everyday small
things might be less useful or less meaningful to retain for a long time.
So it’s sort of like a filter in the brain.
How diet affects memory
Michael Frank: How does Diet affect Memory? Do you change your diet
and eat healthier when you’re entering the world champs?

Jonas von Essen: Not particularly while I’m entering the world champs,
but in general I think I eat quite healthy. I’ve been a Vegan since I
started with the memory techniques actually, but it’s not related. It
wasn’t that I thought that I would get a better memory by becoming a
Vegan, but of course I can’t say that it’s not the case. I don’t know. I
became the world memory champion after that, but probably it was
mostly because of all of the training. I think of course generally, if
you’re healthy and you feel well, then your brain will also be healthier
and you will probably remember things a little more recently. But I
think compared to the effect of have the right techniques and
strategies, I think that diet has only a small effect. Of course it can
have a lot of other great effects on your wellbeing. But I think memory
wise it’s something that people can experiment with if they like, and I
would be happy to see a lot of people going Vegan, but I think that if
you’re going to focus on one thing, I think I would advise you to focus
more on the strategies and techniques.

Michael Frank: Is there a limit to how much we can remember? I

imagine the brain as having a limited amount of storage space. It
might be an incredibly huge amount of storage space, but is there a
limit to how much we can recall?

Jonas von Essen: I think that it can sometimes probably feel as if there
is a limit, and I think that this is usually because you’re trying to
memorize a lot of things in a short period of time, and this is
something you can’t do, then there really exists a limit because you
can’t push too much in the brain in a certain time period. It’s always
better to spread it out as much as possible. But I think that given an
infinite time period, it would actually be possible to memorize almost
infinitely much. Of course, since our brains don’t consist of infinitely
many neurons, it’s by definition not possible to memorize infinitely
much, but I think that the limit of how much we can store is so far
away that even if you lived for like a billion years, I think that you
would still have storage space left.
How to remember names
Michael Frank: Okay. Let’s get into the specific techniques. I think the
first thing that comes to mind for me is that for me at least, and I’d say
for a lot of people, we never forget a face, but it’s so easy to forget a
name. You look at somebody like, I’ve met this person, I know this guy
or girl, but I can’t remember the name. What’s the best way to
remember a name? Especially, I guess on the first day of a new job
where you might meet twenty or thirty people? How do you remember
names?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah I think that’s one part where memory
techniques are very useful, and this particular technique, it might take
some time to get used to it, but once you get it, it’s really possible to
memorize names so much more easily than before, and then you don’t
have to worry about forgetting them anymore. So the idea is that
because names are quite abstract and haven’t been around for such a
long time in human history, the brain isn’t really made for memorizing
names. So here’s one of these situations where you instead use your
visual memory.

So the idea is that you listen to the name, and then you try to
associate it to an image of some kind, and it might be that you think
that the name sounds like something you can visualize, or for some
reason it just makes you think about some particular image, so just
have some association from the name to an image, and then you take
this image and then you try to see it together with the person in
question. Somehow maybe you mentally place this image in the
persons face, like make it stick out of his or her nose or ears or put it
on the person’s head or something like that, and once you’ve really
visualized this then it will usually stick there for quite a long time. So
the next time you see the person, you see the image as well, and then
it reminds you of the name.

Michael Frank: What if it’s an unusual name?

Jonas von Essen: Then usually it’s a little bit more tricky. But after
some training it’s no problem. You have to be a little bit more creative
about the image, but you can still take something that you think the
name sounds like, maybe if it’s a long name, you have to break it down
into smaller parts and make two or three images, but usually after
sometime it’s not that difficult.

Michael Frank: Let’s use as an example. How would you go about

remembering the surname of my childhood
hero “Schwarzenegger”?
Jonas von Essen: So Schwarzenegger, there is a watch company
called “Schwartz”. So I would see a Schwartz watch. And then with
“enegger”, it sounds like “an egg”, so maybe I see a Schwartz watch
with an egg, and instead of showing the time it just shows a big egg.
And then I would imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing this watch
with an egg, and then I know okay it’s a Schwartz watch and then an
egg, and that would be enough to give the hint
of Schwarzenegger.
Michael Frank: So you’ll break the name down into the syllables and
create an image for each of the syllables.

Jonas von Essen: Yeah, if it’s a longer name like this and uncommon
then probably I would do it. For most names however it’s enough to
just have one image that somehow remains you a little bit of the name.

Michael Frank: What about a name like Beyoncé?

Jonas von Essen: Then probably I would just think that it sounds like
“beyond”, and then I would come up with some image that captures
this concept of beyond, maybe like a spaceship, something that is
traveling beyond the galaxy. So then I would imagine her maybe sitting
in a spaceship, or in an astronaut suit, or something like that, and of
course beyond is not exactly Beyoncé, but most often it’s enough of a
hint to make you remember that it was Beyoncé.

Michael Frank: So the image doesn’t need to be exact. It just needs to

be a hint or a pointer to remind you.

Jonas von Essen: Yes exactly. I think that’s also a common thing that
when we don’t think that we remember something, then usually when
we hear it, then we think “yeah that was it”. Like somehow we still
recognize it. So that’s why you don’t have to memorize it exactly,
because your normal memory usually at least has remembered the
name a little bit, so if you can just give it a hint, it will be enough to
get it.

Michael Frank: How long does it take for you at this stage to create
these images and associate them to a name? Can you do that within a
second or two? Does it take you five seconds? How long does it take
you?

Jonas von Essen: I’d say that it’s almost immediate, maybe if it’s a
very complicated name then maybe a few seconds, but usually it
almost comes to mind immediately because I’ve practiced it so much
and I always use it when I meet new people, and especially if it’s
common name then I don’t have to think anymore. I just use my regular
images, but even if it’s a new name I can almost immediately make up
the image and place it and then I don’t have to think about it.

Michael Frank: So the same names get the same images? So for
example, my name “Michael” you’ll associate I’m guessing to a
microphone or something like that?

Jonas von Essen: Yes exactly.

Michael Frank: All Michael’s are microphones?

Jonas von Essen: Yes exactly, that’s exactly right. It fits very well.

Michael Frank: re: associating an image with a name, is there a

standard where everybody uses the same images? Or do competitors
tend to use different images? Does everyone use the same image for
the names Brian or Rachel for example?

Jonas von Essen: I think generally people use different images,

because it’s very much dependent on your personal background and
your personal associations. So it’s difficult to tell people to use certain
images because maybe they don’t associate it with the same things
that you do. So it’s very personal, and it’s also dependent on which
country you’re from. I might use some Swedish things that I associated
to the list names, while someone from England or Mongolia might have
completely different associations. So generally people use very
different images.
How to remember what you read
Michael Frank: What’s the best way to remember what you read?

Jonas von Essen: I think there are a lot of different strategies that
work really well, and I think that the best way is to combine them into
one super strategy, and one of the things that really work well for
remembering almost any fact for a long time is to use the concept of
spaced repetition.

Michael Frank: Can you talk us through that?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah. So usually when you try to remember

something, maybe you read it a few times, or maybe five or six times if
you’d like to really make it stick, and then you think okay now I’ve
repeated it a lot of times hopefully it will stick and I will remember it.
And sometimes you do remember it for some time, and sometimes you
still forget it after just a few days. So it’s quite random. You’re not sure
what you’re going to remember and for how long you’ll remember it. So
the idea of spaced repetition is that you can see that in the beginning
when not too much time has passed after you have read or learnt
something, that you will remember a lot of it. But after a few days you
will have forgotten some or most of it, and if you don’t repeat it, you
will continue to remember less and less.

So what you do is experiment with small repetitions, and you put in a

repetition sometime before you have forgotten too much, so that you
will remember it a little bit longer because you have then strengthened
the memory, and then you can wait a little longer until the next
repetition because you will forget a bit more slowly this time. And then
you repeat and strengthen it again.

So the idea is that you space those repetitions with longer and longer
time intervals in between, so that after just a few repetitions, maybe
the next repetition will be in a year or more, and then you will basically
have it in your long term memory. So this is the basic idea and now
there exists great apps and computer software for applying these
repetitions of patterns. So you just put in anything you want to
remember in these apps and then they will keep track of when you
have to repeat it. So that with minimum effort, you will remember
everything you put in there.
Spaced repetition
Michael Frank: I want you to give me some approximate timing. After I
read a new book, to do spaced repetition, approximately when should I
be reviewing? The next day and then one week later and then one
month later? What do you recommend? What’s the ideal frequency for
spaced repetition?

Jonas von Essen: I think it’s approximately like you said, that you
should repeat it the next day, maybe even the same evening if you
have time, and then the next day, and then maybe after four or five
days, then a few weeks, a month, then several months. But it’s difficult
to say exactly when to repeat because of course it depends a little bit
on what kind of information it is and how well you know it, and how
much you knew about the field before. So that’s also where these apps
are great because then every time you repeat something you can tell
the app how well you knew it, it’s like you rate how well you knew it,
and then the app uses this information to decide when you should
repeat it the next time. So it’s not the same for everything that you put
in there, but you can adjust it to how well you know this particular
fact.

Michael Frank: Do you have any recommendations for which memory

apps to use?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah. Personally, I use an app

called Anki which is really great. I think it’s probably the biggest
spaced repetition app out there and it’s completely free for android. It
does cost a bit for iPhone, but there are also free versions,
like Anki app for iPhone. It’s also free for the computer so it’s
very easy to get, and then you just have to put some things into it, and
then get used to just looking through it a bit every day, and that will
really revolutionize the way you remember things.

How to remember new words when you’re

learning a foreign language
Michael Frank: What do you feel is the best way to remember words
when you’re learning a new language? If you’re unfamiliar with the
language, how do you go about learning it? Is it the same technique
with the images or do you tweak the technique somehow?

Jonas von Essen: It’s quite similar. I definitely use Anki a lot
because it’s very easy, and you can add a lot of words into it and get a
certain amount of new words every day. But I also combine it with
these visual techniques quite a lot, like the names I would take an
image representing the word, like if it’s a noun for example, then I can
just think about it and visualize it somewhere, and then I would make
another image representing the sound or the pronunciation or the
spelling. Like for names I associate it to something that it sounds like,
then I associate this new word image to the meaning. The image from
the meaning of the word. And it’s quite simple once you get used to it,
and it’s also very effective because when you think about the word
you see the image of this word, then you will see the word itself.
Michael Frank: Give me a couple of words where you’ve done that as
an example.

Jonas von Essen: So most of my associations are of course in

Swedish, but maybe in Spanish for example, there’s a
word emparedado which means sandwich. “Empare” sounds
and looks a lot like “empire”, and “dado” sounds like dad. So I
would first imagine a sandwich and then “empire Dad”, it makes me
think of Darth Vader, so then I would just imagine Darth Vader inside
this sandwich. And then when I see the sandwich, I think, okay, it’s
“empire Dad”, that’s emparedado.
How to remember numbers
Michael Frank: It’s funny, I like it. What about numbers? What are the
best ways to recall numbers?

Jonas von Essen: There are a lot of techniques for converting numbers
into images, which I think is the best approach, and some are more
complicated than others. I would say that if you intend on using this
for the rest of your life, then the best thing would be to learn
something called the Major System which is basically that you
memorize a small alphabet, but with digits instead of letters, it’s like a
normal alphabet where every letter has a sound connected to it, but
you do the same with numbers, so every digit from zero to nine, gets
one or a few consonant sounds associated to it. And then once you’ve
learned this, you can sort of read lines of digits or sequences of digits
as words, and then you can see these words as images, and then you
can very easily convert long numbers into sequences of images than
memorize almost as many numbers as you’d like, and in a way that is
really much easier than before.

Michael Frank: So the major system is your number one

recommendation to remember numbers?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah definitely. It takes a little bit of time to get
used to it and to memorize this small table with the digits to the
letters or the sounds, and then get used to it, but it’s like learning how
to ride a bike, maybe you fall off a few times at the beginning, but once
you’ve done it it’s really worth it because then you can use it all the
rest of your life in a lot of situations.

How to remember things you have no interest in

Michael Frank: How do you go about remembering things when you
don’t have an interest in the subject? Something you find really boring
at school. You’re not interested in it. You don’t care. How do you go
about recalling those things?

Jonas von Essen: I think that’s probably the area where memory
techniques make the most sense and are most useful, because the
whole idea of these visual techniques is that you convert whatever you
want to memorize into images and usually these images are in
themselves a lot of fun to remember. And also since they’re so easy to
remember, it also makes it a lot more fun. So I think that just using
these techniques will make it fun even if the subject in itself isn’t that
much fun. And also using the Anki app where you put things there
and you know that you will remember it for a long time. That also
makes it a lot more motivating because usually when you learn
something, and it’s not just that it’s boring, or that you maybe don’t
want to know it, but also that you know that even if you learn it now
you will forget it in a few months and then you will have to learn
again. But if you put it into Anki you will actually remember it your
whole life and then of course it feels a lot more useful and meaningful
and it might come in handy later.

Preview books before reading them

Michael Frank: So in addition to spaced repetition and the Major
System, what are some of your other favorite memory techniques?
Jonas von Essen: I think that if you read a book or if you have just
started some new subject, that you don’t just start from the beginning
of the book and then read through it, but you begin by getting an
overview overview of what’s coming. So maybe you just quickly flick
through the book and read all the headlines so that you sort of get an
idea about what the book is about before you dive into the details. I
think this is something that really helps a lot because then you’re
prepared for what’s coming and you’re not surprised every time you
turn the page, but you sort of know in a more holistic sense what it’s
about. So I think that’s generally a good idea, to start from the whole,
and then go into the details.

Michael Frank: So skim the book before reading it so that you’re giving
your mind a preview of what’s to come.

Don’t cram
Jonas von Essen: Yeah. Also another thing, I think one of the really
simplest and best ways of making learning easier, is that if you’re
going to learn something that you just spread it out over as long a time
period as you can afford. So instead of just trying to learn everything in
one day, or cramming for tests at the last moment, try to really plan
well ahead. Of course it’s not always easy, but I think it makes it a lot
better in the end. You retain a lot more information by simply just
spreading it out and learning whatever you want to learn during a
longer time periods, so that the brain gets time to adjust to it, and also
gets a signal that this is something useful, it’s not just a something
that you read this particular day, but something that you study for a
long time, so it’s probably something that will be useful to know later.

Don’t multitask
Michael Frank: Okay. What else?

Jonas von Essen: Well, I think today a big problem is that people try to
multitask a lot. Virtually all science says that this is a very bad idea
because even if it sometimes feels as if you’re learning more, or
getting more things done while you’re multitasking, it’s a very
disturbing process for the brain and it makes really deep learning
sometimes impossible. You can’t really understand or grasp
complicated concepts if you’re trying to multitask and don’t have a lot
of focus because these things really take a lot of focus and creating
really good memories, that also takes a lot of focus. So I think this is
something that would also make people more productive and make
memorizing and learning easier, that you when you learn something,
that you really focus on this and you put your phone on flight mode and
you turn off the television and the radio. So that you’re really making
sure that you’re really focusing on what you’re going to do at this
point, and then you can take a break and do all the other things, but
don’t mix everything up because that is not good for the brain.

The Memory Palace

Michael Frank: So no multitasking and no distractions. What about the
famous, I don’t know a great deal about it, but the method of Loci or
the Memory Palace technique, how does that work and what is
that used for?
Jonas von Essen: It’s strange that I didn’t mention it yet. I sort of
included it in these visual techniques, and it’s a really great thing for
when you want to memorize a lot of information at the same time, or a
lot of information that somehow hangs together like chapters in a book
for example, or a long sequence of things. What you do is that
you imagine a place that you know, maybe your house or a local store
or just some park in the town where you live, just any place that you
know well, and then you imagine yourself walking through this place.
And then you place the things that you want to memorize on different
locations along this walk in the shape of images. So it’s like the thing
with the names and the words vocabulary, but instead of just
associating everything to like the name image to a person, you
associate everything to a particular place or something on this walk or
journey that you visualize.

Michael Frank: How long does it take to become competent with this
technique?

Jonas von Essen: It’s not difficult to start using it. I think that if you
read a book on memory techniques or look it up on the Internet, then
when you see an example for the first time, then it will work quite well
“Okay try
for you. Like if someone guides you through it and says:
to imagine this picture here, this picture here etc.” then
it works almost immediately. Of course it’s a little bit difficult to take
the next step to actually making up the images yourself and then
putting them in your own memory palace, but it’s not that difficult. I
think anyone trying it out for a few days will be quite good with it. And
then you can expand it and easily memorize hundreds of things
without much effort.

Mnemonics
Michael Frank: Can you talk us through mnemonics. What are they, and
what are some of your favorite mnemonics tips and tricks. I’ve heard
that acronyms and rhymes are quite good tools to aid memory?

Jonas von Essen: Yeah. Mnemonics are like a less developed version
of these visual memory techniques. It’s sort of the same idea that you
take the things that you want to memorize that are not so easy like the
complex or abstract, and then you turn them into something easier like
acronyms for example, for example like the Great Lakes in the United
States. Maybe you know the names of them, but it’s difficult to
remember all of them. What you would do if you’re asked to list all five
of them, is to take the initial letter of every lake and put it together,
then you can, if you’re lucky, create a word out of it, in the case of the
Great Lakes, you can for example make the word “HOMES” and then
you can use this acronym to extract these five lakes: Huron, Ontario,
Michigan, Erie and Superior. So small tricks like that can of course be
very useful and many teachers use them when teaching kids, and
usually they work quite well. But I’d say that their weaknesses is that
they’re quite specific. Like for example, with “HOMES” it’s just luck
that it’s possible to make a word that fits quite well to these lakes.
And in many cases it’s not always easy to come up with some rhyme
that makes you remember the spelling of a certain word, and it’s not
something that you can generally and very effectively use for
everything you want to remember, and I think that’s where the visual
memory techniques are so much more powerful because you can use
them to memorize really anything you want to remember and also in a
very systematic and effective way, and also much quicker. So I think
mnemonics are good, but if you know about visual techniques then you
shouldn’t have to use the more simple mnemonics.

What if you have difficulty visualizing?

Michael Frank: A lot of the memory techniques and exercises require
visualization. But what if you have difficulty visualizing? What do you
“I can’t visualize” or “I
do then? What about people that say
have difficulty with visualization” or “I don’t have an
active imagination” etc. What’s your advice there?
Jonas von Essen: Yes of course that can be a problem. And I think that
you have to divide these people into different groups, because most
people find it quite difficult in the beginning to visualize things and to
use their imagination to come up with these memory aids, but I think
that it’s just because they’re not used to it, it’s because we don’t
usually associate random images to things we want to remember. So I
think that for most people it’s just about practicing it more and more
and getting more and more used to it, and then just trying not to think
too much about it. And not judging yourself too much in the beginning,
but just trying to get into it a little bit at a time. And of course there
are also a very small percentage of people who actually have a
problem visualizing things, but even they can get used to it if they
really try. And I’m quite sure that even for those with this inability to
visual things, it’s not such a big problem because you can still use all
of your other senses. Even if you can’t see yourself going on this
mental journey, or around this memory palace, I would find it very
difficult to believe that someone can’t imagine that they’re walking
around in their house. Even if they can’t see it clearly. Like you can
still feel how it is to walk around and you can imagine that you’re
walking into your own kitchen, and then you can still imagine that
these things are placed on different things, that there is a monster in
the kitchen sink for example, even if you can’t clearly see it, you can
still imagine that it’s there and then you can still use the same
principles and the same ideas. There are even studies that show that
memory techniques have worked for blind people, people blind from
birth. That of course shows that you don’t need to be able to visualize
things to make it work.

Memory Mistakes
Michael Frank: In addition to cramming, multitasking, trying to learn or
study with distractions, what do you feel are some of the biggest
memory mistakes that most people make?

Jonas von Essen: I feel that one of the biggest mistakes is that people
generally don’t trust their memories. And of course there might be a
good reason for that, but in some cases it’s also a big hindrance for
remembering things because, for example, almost everyone is sure
that they’re very bad at remembering names and just by saying to
yourself“Yeah, I’m really bad at remembering names, I
will never be able to remember the names of all these
new people”, like that of course will make it impossible for you to
remember it, because then you will probably not even try, you will
probably just shake hands with people and then you will say your name
and focus on that, and they’ll say their names but you don’t notice it,
you won’t think about it, you won’t focus on it, and I think that’s of
course a very bad idea because then you definitely won’t remember it.
I think that’s a very simple thing that you can do is to at least try to
remember it.
Michael Frank: Do you have any parting advice or
recommendations? Are there any particular books that you
recommend?

Jonas von Essen: There are a lot of books on the subject, and
personally I think that most of them teach approximately the same
things, but I can recommend the ones by Dominic O’Brien. He’s a
previous world memory champion and I think he describes the general
techniques quite well. So one of his books would be nice and there is
an American forum called The Art of Memory where people
discuss these techniques and I think that’s also a good place to start.
Michael Frank: Are you going to enter the world champs again, Jonas?

Jonas von Essen: Not at the moment, no. Because it takes a lot of time
to stay on the absolute top level and to be able to compete with all of
the others. So at the moment I’m not planning on starting practicing
that much again, but I’m focusing on other projects like I’m still
memorizing decimals of Pi, and I intend to try to be the first person to
beat the 100, 000 barrier because it feels like a cool goal to get past.
Bio:
Jonas von Essen is a two-
time World Memory Champion and has
held memory records and won
countless memory competitions around the world. He
has participated in big Chinese TV shows, placed 2nd in
Sweden’s got Talent (by memorizing the first 50,000
decimals of pi), done advertisements for Nissan and
helped Charles Darwin University in creating
a memory course. Recently he published his first book
on memory techniques and at the moment he is
studying informatics in Gothenburg as well as working
part-time as a public speaker, and is determined to
spread the wonderful world of memory techniques to
as many as possible.
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