An interesting “memory strategy” featured in this MIT Press Reader article draws inspiration from actors’ approaches to memorizing dialogue.
In describing how they remember their lines, actors are telling us an important truth about memory — deep understanding promotes long-lasting memories. […] Focusing on [the] visual, acoustic, and conceptual aspects […] correspond to shallow, moderate, and deep levels of processing, and the depth of processing that is devoted to an item or event affects its memorability. Memory is typically enhanced when we engage in deep processing that provides meaning for an item or event, rather than shallow processing. Given a list of common nouns to read, people recall more words on a surprise memory test if they previously attended to the meaning of each word than if they focused on each word’s font or sound.