@ cyber, a useful tip I got for 3OP corner orientations was to group pieces during your memo in the way you intend to solve them. Recognize "headlights" or "chameleon" pairs, or triple cw or triple ccw. You might get lucky to see "pi" or "wheels" on top or on bottom, as those are easy to remember. Remember though if you intend to handle something like "headlights" with the cube turned on edge by [f], the twist direction might not be what you expect. I choose to turn the cube over in [f2] direction when I look at the bottom, but you might have your own preference. The concept of remembering patterns the way you intend to solve them is mentioned at
http://cube.garron.us/BLD/CO.htm . I don't use letters or numbers though. I remember the patterns and the way they point.
I still remember edge orientations as a 3 digit hex number, in case I cannot remember it visually. For example, 9A3 hex would represent 1001 1010 0011 for edges 1 through 12, where "1" indicates a piece to be flipped. Some people feel this might be time consuming. At the moment, I have trouble without it.
If you haven't done so, you might look at the thread, "BLD Training?" In order to learn from failures, you have to know what could have gone wrong. If you just train on one or 2 stages at a time, you usually can figure your failures out a bit easier.
My memo is slow, but it could drastically improve by drilling myself on cubie colors/positions. It also seems I currently need a bit of time to get some things into my longer term memory. My short term memory is bad. I might take 10 or 15 minutes for memo and the same for execution. Your mind is fresher than mine, so you will do it faster. I just finished my 32nd successful BLD since my first 2 months ago, but my speed has not improved much. My first goal is to get comfortable before speeding up.
