How long does it take to build and drill a PAO, and how should you approach it?

Weeks of practice, built incrementally — a suit at a time (or a range of numbers), drilled to instant recall before adding more.

Don't try to memorise all 52 (or 100) at once. Build and drill in chunks:

1. Assign one suit / one block of numbers.
2. Drill it both ways — item → PAO and PAO → item — until instant.
3. Add the next chunk; review the old.

Fluency, not just knowing the table, is the goal: you should see each item's person the moment you meet it, with no pause.

Go deeper:

• Nelson Dellis — How to create a 2-digit PAO system — he describes building and drilling the system in chunks.