Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and Be More Productive (Unabridged‪)‬

I generally get about 1 to 2 things from each book I read… However, I was able to pool numerous new ways to learn from this book. This is a great read, thank you so much to the author for sharing their knowledge. I love the concept on remembering numbers!

This review is primarily for the audiobook presentation of Unlimited Memory. As my title indicates, I found this book to be more of an attempt at a tough-love motivational book than a book on improving one's memory. Though several memory techniques are covered, mostly in the middle, they are couched within a litany "you can and should be better than you are" scolding. The first third of the book is a series of chapters justifying what the author is about to teach. The first chapter essentially tells the reader "I know you think this isn't going to work, and all of your objections are groundless, probably because you're lazy and refuse to change". I'm paraphrasing here, but I felt like I was getting a lecture from my father. It didn't put me in a mindset to learn; it stoked my desire to resist because the whole thing started off confrontationally. If I wasn't motivated to learn or desirous of change, I wouldn't have purchased the book. The intro made me regret the decision before he even showed what he had to offer.

The memory techniques discussed were valuable, but unfortunately this was where the audio presentation suffered. This is potentially life-changing information, and yet it is rushed through at a staggering pace. Descriptions are rushed through with such rapidity, it's very difficult to paint a picture in one's head. One of the first lessons consists of picturing people and objects around your car. The narrator zips through these and then expects the listener to recall them. I am familiar with similar techniques and use them regularly, and I simply couldn't keep up. Someone who'd never been exposed to this sort of imagery, I imagine, would be lost, frustrated, and give up. I'll repeat that the lessons here are valid and useful, but the presentation here ruins them. Perhaps the preaching is designed to put the onus of learning (or lack of same) on the listener, and not on the the quick, almost cursory discussion of the material.

At a scant two and a half hours, this kind of information is crammed in. Sandwiched as it is between "how can you expect to change if you refuse to do the work" commentary, the whole thing turned me off, though one technique is interesting enough to warrant a few more listens, just so I can keep track of it as it speeds by. Seriously, you can't force feed people this kind of information at a heightened pace. And it's GOOD information; just not enough of it, it's not explored deeply enough, and the guilt-tripping at the beginning and end certainly don't help.

I highly, highly recommend Dominic O'Brien's Quantum Memory Power over this book. The techniques are explained slowly and thoughtfully, in a much more friendly, humorous and engaging manner (though perhaps a bit dated as of this writing, the techniques are absolutely valid). It's also three times the size of this work and consequently more expensive, but I assure you, the increased cost is more than worth it.

I would love to hear more from this author, without the preaching and with deeper explanations, read at a substantially more relaxed pace. One of the keystones of learning is that you must do it from a relaxed state of mind, and this thing just made me tense from beginning to end.

I purchased the audio version; 7 tracks in and not one technique has been introduced yet.