Roman has developed a method to memorize effectively, and the way to do it is to imagine yourself in a room that you know well. Perhaps in your living room, bedroom, an office, your parents’ home, or a route that you walk very often.

The Roman memory system, in principle, is to attach things you want to remember to objects within the room. This way you can recall the objects without any effort.

Imagine you went on a boat trip and you left your bag in a room. You put your towel near the edge of the boat, and your personal belongings are hidden under a towel near a box. After the party is over, you are able to pick up all these items and locate them without any issues. Why is that? Because our brain functions in a way that allows you to store all these images in your memory, and you can recall them later. This also explains taxi drivers’ capability to know which route to take when you tell them the destination you want to go to.

To further elaborate on the Roman Technique, imagine you have to memorize the five possible levels of technical compliance regarding FATF standards. They are:

1. Compliant
2. Largely compliant
3. Partially compliant
4. Non-compliant
5. Not applicable

You can memorize this using the Roman technique. Imagine yourself in your bedroom. For FATF, imagine there is a very fat fly (FAT F) flying in your bedroom. You are the assessor and you want to make a judgment whether this fly complies with the fat fly standard. (The more exaggerated and interesting pictures you create, the better it works.)

This can be done by picturing this fly staying in front of you and complaining (Compliant). Later, another fly comes in which is very LARGE in size (Largely compliant). Then, the third fly comes in with only half of its wings (Partially compliant).

Finally, the fourth fly comes and doesn’t complain to you at all (Non-compliant), and eventually, the last fly doesn’t fly but just walks in as it is not able to fly (Not applicable to assess the level of standard).

The rule of thumb is: the more exaggerated, funnier, and crazier it is, the better memorization it creates and the more it reinforces your memories.

This works not just for memorizing information in point form but for everything else as well.

While the Roman memory method requires a lot of practice to make it work, it is tremendously helpful in the long run and makes your studying much more fun in practice.

Another way to dramatically improve your studies is to do many practice questions. This will keep your brain active and functioning to think about the context actively rather than passively reading the content.

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