[teichman]

For remembering things: check out Anki, or any other spaced repetition system. Rote memorization isn't the complete solution, of course, but problem solving becomes vastly easier when the components of the solution are readily available in your mind.

For some reason our schooling systems haven't picked up on how incredibly useful the spacing effect is. Use it to your advantage! It has made a real difference for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect