Most people recommend that a beginner at tarot read a card a day about what to expect for the day. This is a good idea. However, I personally believe writing down a journal of definitions out of books once you have written down your impressions is a good exercise before or during the single card readings.
Using memory techniques to learn the cards would be wise. One such technique is to make the meanings into funny rhymes. I suggest the book Super Memory Super Student by Harry Lorayne to all my college friends, but it is beneficial for all learning situations. It’s a quick read and saves massive amounts of time studying. I got through a college psychology class with it for most the term with only an hour study time for midterms and had an A. There was no homework for the course only five midterms and a final. Finally my health problems that occupied me too much to study got to be too much, and I still had to drop the course. So save yourself possibly years of studying tarot to be thoroughly versed in meanings.
For a beginning reader try using only the upright meanings. As you get better you can and in my opinion should reverse the cards in most decks. I and others I know have found that if there are no given reversed (inverted image) card meanings given for a particular deck the cards will not make much sense with the cards reversed. I have found a daily tarot reading with many cards like five to ten to be a good exercise.
As you get better you can put the cards down for a long time and still be able to read. It did took me a couple years to be able to pick up pretty much where I left off when I have taken an accidental hiatus. Now it only takes a few readings to get back in the swing of things. It is best to avoid hiatuses, but alas sometimes I have felt no need to read. Remember especially if you fall off the daily practice wagon and get rusty Tarot is a lifelong study and shouldn’t be something one expects to master quickly.
Remember too the journal does not do near as much good unless you review it. I would suggest each reading be reviewed at least at first from the one day mark, the one week mark, and the once a month mark for six months to a year. I have had readings take years to pan out. I tend to think of things in the long term so my readings tend to cover automatically one year of events. I do suggest you put a time frame down for your tarot readings, and avoid “Ever” as a qualifier.
The most important exercise you can do for actually reading the cards is asking the right question. Here is my personal tip of my own discovery: If you can’t think what to ask you can always think “What am I afraid of hearing?” Then think “What do I hope to hear?” that will lead you to your question, which should be open ended, just by looking at what question would require your cards to answer both questions. Yes and no questions cheat you and eventually others as you improve enough to read for them.
How do so many readers claim that it is impossible to read for oneself? Most of us are particularly dishonest with ourselves because we are attached to an answer; the ticket to reading for yourself is detachment. When I was learning to read for myself I learned that if I said to myself before I shuffled and also before interpreting “Check your optimism and your pessimism at the door” I could detach enough to read accurately. Also disregard what you “know” about the situation. What you “know” is often wrong.
Remember the value of intuition is often greater than that of logic and it can be trained and strengthened.
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