You might remember the meaning of the character 猴 with this easy mnemonic:
My pet monkey and cat (犭) love playing with this staff (亻) because it has a magnet (⺈) on it. They dangle themselves over a cliff (厂) with nothing but an arrow (矢) attached to the magnet.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.