About this website: The ultimate goal of this website is to quickly teach you most of what you need to know in order to achieve any memory or learning related project. I have good reasons to think that, within limits, most people can learn to develop most skills. As long as you believe that you can do it, you know how to proceed and you use the right techniques. The point of this website isn’t to try to sell you anything. Everything here is free. It’s not about self-promotion either. Everyone who wants to explore things further will also find helpful links to most of the best memory and learning related resources that you can find online or offline. You won’t have to waste much time searching the Web and getting lost in a sea of unequal content.
About me: My name is Francis Blondin. I’m deeply passionate about everything related to learning. I was the so-called “Canadian Memory Champion” in 2016 and in 2017. I don’t like using that title because it doesn’t mean what you might think it does, but I’m using it anyway because it’s a helpful way to attract attention and gain a little bit of credibility. Most of what I write and produce appears in French on toutretenir.com, but I’ve also written a bunch of English language tutorials on canadianmindsports.com and elsewhere. I created this website mostly because I thought I should have a one-stop place in English that I could refer people to. English isn’t my first language, but hopefully I will still manage to make my writing clear enough for everyone.
Please note that while I’m hoping to be able to change this soon enough, for now this newly born website remains far from complete. However, if you can tolerate the currently less-than-ideal presentation, I think that you will find plenty of extremely helpful links and advice.
The cubing, juggling and mental math pages have been added for fun and for anyone who might find those skills to be interesting. The most important parts of this website in my opinion are definitely the Learn any skill and the Art of Memory pages. As long as you aren’t aiming for some clearly unrealistic goal, chances are you can choose to learn almost any skill you want. When you proceed intelligently, the process doesn’t have to be that long. I wish that fact was drilled into everyone’s head. If you can commit to practicing 15 to 90 minutes a day and power through those first few difficult and uncomfortable sessions, you’ll be amazed by what you can manage to accomplish. Although there is no magical pill to learn a new skill without effort, there are methods that are much, much more efficient than “simply practicing” while hoping for the best. I think the world would be a better place if people realized how they can choose to train their brain like they can train their body.
When it comes to the art of memory, I think this is one of the coolest, most amazing, most fun and most useful skill that one can choose to acquire. It truly is something anyone can do as long as you’re willing to invest some efforts for a little while. It’s a baffling scandal that so few people are currently aware of this. Unlike other complex skills like playing a musical instrument, under the right conditions, impressive results can be achieved almost overnight. It doesn’t mean it’s easy though, it just means that you can do it if you put your cell phone away for a little while, focus and use your imagination.
Some pages you might want to check out:
- Those fascinating interviews about the very important concept that is deliberate practice. Interview 1. Interview 2. Interview 3.
- If you aim for the “good enough” instead of the “expert” level, 20 hours of practice or less might be all you need to become good at a difficult new skill. Relevant interview. To be clear: cramming 20 hours of practice in 2 or 3 or 5 days won’t work nearly as well as 45 minutes a day, 5 or 6 days a week for 4 weeks. You need sleep for focus and you also need it to consolidate what you’ve learned.
- Some of the best articles, videos and news reports about the art of memory
- Other recommended websites, books and training websites about the art of memory.
- Some great books about memory and learning and psychology.