
Willpower Workout #20: Memorization Challenge
September 18, 2020Memorization 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:
- Wait until at least the afternoon.
- Turn on a podcast or audio of some other kind that is of interest to you.
- Now memorize the poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll.
- 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:
- How long did it take you to memorize the poem in its entirety?
- Did you feel like giving up at any point? Did you regress in your recall of the poem at any point?
- 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:
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Past Workouts:
- Day 1: Overcoming Boring Tasks
- Day 2: Concentrating While Taxing Your Body
- Day 3: Overcoming Offense
- Day 4: Staying Productive When You’re Not Seeing Progress
- Day 5: Pushing Past Feeling Depleted
- Day 6: Focusing Amid Distractions
- Day 7: Cold Water Challenge
- Day 8: How to Do Your Least Motivating Task
- Day 9: Going Beyond Failure
- Day 10: Asking For and Giving Constructive Feedback
- Day 11: Beating Disgust
- Day 12: Resisting Bad Habits
- Day 13: Stretching Your Habit-Forming Muscles
- Day 14: Going Without Sleep
- Day 15: Dealing with Discouragement
- Day 16: Enduring the Physical Discomfort of Fasting
- Day 17: Overcoming Temptation
- Day 18: Ending Bad Habits
- Day 19: Doing Very Easy Tasks