You might remember the meaning of the character 陵 with this easy mnemonic:
There's a mound in the middle of the city (阝) made completely out of earth (土). Every morning at eight (八), my mom goes (夂) to this mound and goes slowly (夊) around it several times.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.