I told some class I’d post this info.—I just don’t remember who. (3rd period, was that you?) Anyway, we were talking about memory techniques, and I mentioned one I’d seen for specifically memorizing numbers. Here’s the link I promised: The Red Table.
Like I said in class, the basic principle is that each number from 0–9 is assigned to a phonetic unit (not so much a letter, but a sound, this is important—it adds flexibility. Check out the table, you’ll see.) Once you’ve learned the table, you can encode and decode long numbers as words, which ought to be easier to remember.
If you find this interesting, you also might want to check out the tips for memorizing the table, and play with the online test. If you’re really into it, there’s even software you can download (PC only; sorry my Mac-ies) that will suggest words to go with numbers you enter, so you don’t have to think them up yourself.
If you’re still on a memorizing kick after that, you might want to check out the other method I mentioned, which is technically known as the “loci method” (loci is Latin for “place,” yes?), where you mentally attach items you need to remember to certain places. Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation, and evernerve.com has a description that emphasizes the startling and bizarre for even more recall power. Finally, our friends up at Maryville 😉 host a page with brief explanations of several memory-methods on it, including the loci method, and an interesting alphabet-grid method (at the bottom) that’s similar.
Remember, there’s no “magic” way to memorize stuff that doesn’t take, you know, some amount of work. 😛 You still have to memorize something. These methods (and others like them) are just ways to hack your brain to make the things your memorizing more.… memorable.