Tag: #diy

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” – Benjamin Franklin

Here we go. I’m making a plan to actively memorize Scripture.

Check out this post for how I noticed I was getting flabby (in body and mind) and why I really want to make Scripture Memory a regular part of my life. (The benefits are truly astounding!)

In One Ear, Out the Other

Now, I’m not a stranger to memorizing God’s Word. When I was a kid, I was extremely motivated to earn team points at Story Book Lodge by memorizing all the verses on my verse card, and the extra passages.

While I can quote some of the verses because I memorized them “again” at church or VBS, the vast majority of the verses didn’t stick.

My problem was that I never came back to review the verses I learned. I had dumped them in my short-term memory and never dug them out again.

In recent years, the same thing happened. Whenever I would “finish” memorizing a passage, that was it. I wouldn’t frequently review it, and when I did, it just was too hard to recall.

As I mentioned in my previous post, when I started linking exercising and reviewing verses, I found that I retained them much longer (especially in the summer when exercise is easier).

Systematic Review

So now with renewed vigor to invest in memorizing, I know my approach needs to address this problem of retention. I need a review system that enables me to come back to verses over and over.

Last week, knowing of my renewed interest, my husband passed along an interactive comic: How to Remember Anything Forever-ish. In an entertaining way, the comic explains how to use spaced repetition to improve memory retention. Think of it like in college: studying a little bit each day is better than cramming the night before an exam. To achieve spaced repetition, the comic talks about a tool called the Leitner box.

Why had I never heard of this before?

…Better Leitner than never.

While several apps exist that help you memorize with spaced repetition, I love the idea of making a physical, analog system (My husband says I like to make things hard for myself… I say I like to feel the paper and pen in my hand.)

Using the Leitner box, each verse progresses through 7 review levels. Each time you accurately recall the verse, it moves up another level. If you can’t remember the verse, it goes back to Level 1. Not every level is reviewed each day, however. That’s what makes it spaced repetition.

You can find a video tutorial here, but I’ll walk you through how I made my own Leitner box:

DIY Leitner Box

First, I rummaged through my closet and found a nice-sized shoebox. (My old CDs had to find a new home… and in all honesty it probably should be the garbage can.)

I got out masking tape, scissors, and 3×5 cards. While I could’ve made a tab from anything, I had these fancy post-its that I wanted to use to make the dividers… they were bigger than the 3×5 cards, so I cut and taped appropriately.

Then I numbered the dividers and taped them into the shoebox:

Next I needed a schedule to remember which levels I’m supposed to review each day. This tutorial used dots, but I decided I wanted something more practical. I created a schedule on a Google Sheet instead.

Finally, I’m not much for decorating, but a dear friend had just given me some beautiful verse cards that she had created, so I decided to incorporate them on the inside and outside of the lid.

Now that I have a system to review, the next step is figuring out which verses I should memorize. I’ve got some ideas already, and you may see a hint in this picture of my finished Leitner Box:

Thanks for following along my journey! If you actively memorize or would like to start, I’d love to hear from you! Comment below or contact me through social media: @laurakeywords on Facebook or Instagram.

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