Willpower workout: Memorization challenge

Willpower Workout #20: Memorization Challenge

September 18, 2020

Memorization requires a high degree of mental focus, which can be difficult to exert at the end of the day and in the face of distractions. You’ll remember from Willpower Workout 6 that we tested our focal abilities first in the absence of distractions and then in its presence.

In this workout, we will enter into the challenge of memorizing a poem. To make this more difficult, we’re going to memorize a poem littered with made-up words and we’re going to add distractions.

Day 20 Willpower Workout:

  1. Wait until at least the afternoon.
  2. Turn on a podcast or audio of some other kind that is of interest to you.
  3. Now memorize the poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll.
  4. Recite the full poem aloud to complete the workout.

If you’re looking for some ways to speed your memorization time, consider these.

Evaluating Your Workout:

  1. How long did it take you to memorize the poem in its entirety?
  2. Did you feel like giving up at any point? Did you regress in your recall of the poem at any point?
  3. How do you think the distraction of the audio playing affected your pace of memorization?

Willpower Workout in Action:

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This is day 19 of a 40-day journey to explore your limits. If you’d like to receive a daily email with the willpower workout of the day, you can sign up here to start at Day 1 with the first workout:

If you’d prefer to jump in where Matt is right now and then make up the other workouts on your own schedule, sign up here:

Past Workouts:

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