Retaining information when you have so much else to think about

[Hideehi]

Has anyone else found it really hard to memorise facts and figures whilst juggling work and children.
I have exams in three weeks time and it's as if I've not studied the course at all.

Have you tried using memorising techniques (when I did my systems engineering exams I used these to great effect for memorising numbers!)

stuff like

associate each number 0 - 9 with a celebrity

say 9 = jack nicholson, 2 = sir alan sugar and 5 = fern britton

to memorise the number 592 you construct a bizarre narrative in your mind involving fern britton, jack nicholson and siralansugar

it works brilliantly

worth looking in the library for memory technique books, that's what i did (and got 90+ % in the exams)

I find it a blessed relief to be studying actually. I'm rubbish at keeping up over the course, but then I knuckle down for the last month (so with 3 weeks to go you have loads of time!) and revise like mad, shamefully neglect my children and actually have a whale of a time. I feel like it all comes together (as it probably would have done earlier if I had actually kept up ) and it is great.

Are you studying something you enjoy - or is it just a means to an end?

also writing down words or sentances on flashcards and pinning them up around the house where you are likely to spend time looking at them e.g.

Back of toilet door.
ON wall where you prepare food.
Inside purse so you see it whenever you get money out.

WHereever you spend time standing and doing other things.

If you can group them, so if you need to remember something you can think 'back of toilet door' or whereever.