Using emoji and memory palaces to memorize passages

Let’s say you wanted to memorize a paragraph of text, like the following:

Flee from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But reject foolish and ignorant disputes, because you know that they breed quarrels. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth. Then they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will (2 Tim. 2:22-26 CSB).

For most people, this is challenging task, because the human brain is not particularly good at remembering abstract things like passages of text. What the human brain is good at remembering, however, is pictures and places. What if there was a way to combine the brain’s strengths with the value of memorizing important texts? First, we might connect each key phrase of the passage with emoji:

👟 Flee from youthful passions, and

pursue 💯 righteousness, ⚓️ faith, ❤️ love, and 🕊️ peace,

along with those who ☎️ call on the Lord from a pure heart.

But 🙅‍♂️ reject foolish and

ignorant 🤬 disputes, because you know that
they breed 🤬 quarrels. The Lord’s servant must not 🤬 quarrel, but

must be 🐶 gentle to everyone, able to 🎓 teach, and 💣 patient, 🎓 instructing his opponents with 🐶 gentleness.

Perhaps God will grant them ↩️ repentance leading them to the 🕯️ knowledge of the truth.

Then they may 🤔 come to their senses and escape the 🪤 trap of the devil, who has taken them ⛓️ captive to do his will (2 Tim. 2:22-26 CSB).

Then, we could orient the emoji in order around a well-known physical space, such as a dining room table:

The strength of this approach has to do with the iconic nature of emoji, thus providing a visual abstraction of textual content making it easier to memorize.

#memory #effectiveness #discipleship