Your brain is bad at lists and excellent at places and pictures. The memory palace borrows the second to carry the first. It's the oldest memory technique there is, and in trials it works for ordinary people, not only memory champions, with gains that last months. Evidence: decent
The stranger the picture, the better it sticks. A speech, a shopping list, names at a meeting: same trick.
Same theme: Learning it
Learning it
Coffee after, not before
Want a fact to stick? Have the coffee right after you learn it.
no timeEvidence: worth trying
Learning it
Hook the new thing to something you know
Learning a name, a fact, a process: ask what it reminds you of, and tie it there.
no timeEvidence: decent
Learning it
Learn it last thing before lights out
The thing you need to remember goes in the final fifteen minutes before sleep. Not the phone.
15 minEvidence: decent