About Memletics#

This introduction was written in 2003 for the original printed edition. The content remains current.

Our memory underpins everything we think, say and do. Many of us consider it a basic brain ability that allows us to (sometimes) remember a shopping list, birthday or anniversary. Memory is far more fundamental than that. It supports basic activities such as breathing and movement, right through to complex activities such as performing surgery and flying an aircraft.

For such a fundamental skill, it’s surprising that school does not teach us more about how to learn and how to use our memory well. Many people still consider learning a “hit and miss” affair. They hope that some of what they learn by rote sinks in to allow them to pass a test.

If you have ever tried to find out more about learning though, you probably found few guides on how to learn more effectively. Our brain doesn’t come with a user’s manual. You also may not have the time to find valuable information. A wide range of methods and techniques out there claim to improve memory. Many do not work. Some bad experiences may push you to stick to the ways you already know.

This manual answers the question “how do I improve my learning and memory?” Over the past few years, I’ve used flight training and other activities to help work out that answer for myself. In researching this manual, I’ve reviewed more than thirty books, many articles and countless web references to add to and refine my knowledge. I’ve tried to avoid the unproven ideas and only include techniques shown to work by reputable organizations or direct experience. I’ve then turned that knowledge into an easy-to-understand system you can easily apply to any learning objective.

I call this learning system Memletics. Memletics combines the words Memory and Athletics. I chose this name because there many parallels between athletic skill and learning skill. Let’s look at some of those.

While you may believe you have a poor memory, the truth is gentler than that. The athletics in the name points at one simple idea: like fitness, good learning is trained, not gifted. It doesn’t come from unlocking some hidden, unused part of your brain - that’s a myth. It comes from practising a few methods that genuinely work and keeping your mind in good condition to use them. Almost anyone can get markedly better this way. So you don’t have a poor memory - you have an untrained one.

You don’t have a poor memory, you just have an untrained memory.

You can improve your athletic fitness through many activities. Similarly, you can also improve your memory fitness through many activities. Some are easy, some are challenging. Just like athletic fitness, it takes time to build your memory fitness. You don’t expect you can run a marathon the day after going for a jog for the first time in five years. Similarly, you can’t learn one memory technique and suddenly your memory drastically improves.

Like improving your athletic fitness, improving your memory fitness has benefits in many areas of your life. Employment, relationships, confidence and leisure are a few. I strongly believe that in today’s economic climate, self-directed learners have a great advantage over those who wait for the next organized course to come along. This manual helps you become a self-directed learner.

The more varied your memory training, the more you can use your memory fitness in different ways. Comparing back to athletics, if you only learn one technique you are like someone who only does the javelin. If you instead learn several disciplines, you are like someone who can also run, swim and jump. Someone capable in these areas can also apply and enjoy their fitness in new sports, physical games, and other activities. Similarly, knowing several memory techniques allows you to enjoy the benefits of good memory in many other areas of your life, not just in your studies.

Athletics and Memletics do differ on a particular point though. Athletics typically focuses on a particular event. For example, an athletic meet, championship or even the Olympic Games. Memletics differs because it focuses on lifelong learning. Let me explain a little more. We often measure the effectiveness of a training course by how effectively we can perform certain skills at the end of the course. For example, we use an exam to test our learning. This measure of effectiveness does not consider how much we forget three months, six months or a year after training—usually the most important time! If we used long-term retention as the measure of success for today’s courses, we would find that many rate poorly.

Memletics does not just focus on training for an exam or test. It provides you with techniques to help keep what you’ve learned in your immediately accessible memory for the long term—for the rest of your life if you wish.

You can apply Memletics to many goals involving some form of learning. In doing so you further develop your Memletic fitness. Indeed, if you don’t already have a goal in mind I recommend you find one to help you learn Memletics at the same time. In the Overview section, I list many examples, however here are a few: Use it to learn professions such as flying, medicine and law. Use it to develop personal skills such as communication, presentation, leadership and consulting. School and college students can apply it to their studies. If you want to focus on pursuits unrelated to work, why not try your hand at sailing, photography, languages, cooking or wine appreciation? Lastly, Memletics works well with sports and other physical activities.

Throughout this manual, you will find practical examples from some of these areas. I often use these examples to show how to apply a particular technique. Many of the examples are from learning to fly, however I’ve also included examples from public speaking, sailing, photography and others. The word example appears over four hundred times in this manual.

At first, using Memletics may take more time. As a society we have tried to take shortcuts in learning. Memletics will help you relearn practices so you can learn any topic quickly. Once you learn how, the extra effort repays itself many times over.

This manual is your Memletics training guide. Use it to help you develop Memletic fitness. The first section gives you an overview and then the following five sections take you through Memletics in detail. You learn the fundamentals of the Memletic State, Process, Techniques, Styles and Approach. Any worthwhile effort likely involves various challenges. The “Deal with Challenges” section provides examples on how you can overcome some common learning challenges.

As you can see, you can apply Memletics in almost any area of your life. You may be still in school, in the middle of a career or retired. For younger individuals, Memletics provides a great head start in education. Those who are working can use Memletics to advance their career faster. Memletics can help you make the most of recreation time. And for older individuals, keeping a learning habit is simply good living - I won’t promise it holds back ageing, but a curious, active mind is a fine thing to carry through later life.

I want to mention one last parallel between athletic fitness and Memletic fitness. Like athletic fitness, your Memletic fitness doesn’t improve if you don’t get up and do something. Reading this manual alone may slightly improve your Memletic fitness, however to get the benefits you need to start learning and using the system. A good memory comes from practice. As you read, start thinking of ways you can practice Memletics. How can you start to apply the system in your life? If you don’t already have a goal in mind, start thinking of ideas.

Be excited about learning! Read on and find out how.

Origin Story#

The roots of Memletics go back to 1994, when the author picked up a book on accelerated learning while in college. Trying some of the techniques and seeing real results sparked a lasting interest in how we learn and remember.

When the opportunity arose to start flight training in 1998, it became the perfect testing ground. In the cockpit, it quickly becomes obvious whether you have truly learned something or not. Some techniques worked remarkably well, and a flight instructor’s curiosity led to a set of written notes. Those notes grew into a thirty-page booklet shared with a small group.

By 2002, the booklet had expanded to two hundred and eighty pages of content. The learning system was separated from the aviation-specific material, and the result became the Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual, first published in April 2003. This web edition makes the full manual freely available.