You might remember the meaning of the character 作 with this easy mnemonic:
The sculptor made a huge effort in making the Greek god Zeus. Much attention was given to Zeus' lightning staff (亻). He chanted calming, "One (一), two (二)…" as he hammered in the slashes ( 丿) and lines (丨).
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.