You might remember the meaning of the character 庭 with this easy mnemonic:
Inside that house on the dotted cliff (广) is a basketball court, and there lives a scholar (士) who never plays basketball, but instead takes long strides (廴) around the court, slashing (丿) at the air with his sword.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.