You might remember the meaning of the character 塔 with this easy mnemonic:
This tower is standing on sacred earth (土) that only grows red flowers (艹) and if a man (人) dares step foot on these grounds, he has one (一) minute before his mouth (口) dries up and he dies of thirst.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.