You might remember the meaning of the character 戚 with this easy mnemonic:
I have a relative who know how to slash (丿) open anything with his halberd (戈). Once, at a junction (⺊), he slashed open one (一) small (小) car in merely two seconds.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.