Memory devices that work for me

Their are several memory devices that worked for me in middle school. One of my 8th grade teachers, Mrs. Liebauc, was crazy about mnemonic devices. She taught Science and Religion, and I still remember that "King Phillip Came Over From Germany Suddenly"= Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. I haven't used that information for any practical purpose in almost 20 years, but it's still there. Thanks, Mrs. Liebauc!
I also found that taking notes during a lecture helped me to remember it a lot better. Even if I was paying attention, if I didn't take notes, I wouldn't retain as much information. If I took notes, I would cut my necessary study time significantly.
Also making associations between new knowledge, and some type of prior knowledge helped me to remember. Mrs. Liebauc was really into that one too. She would make up metaphors between things she was teaching, and common examples to help us understand and remember concepts.
One more thing that worked for me was putting information, like definitions, Quotes, or lists of any kind, to some sort of rhythm or melody in my mind, nobody told me to do that, and I don't know why it worked, but it did.