Hi Todd,
Yeah writing it out 4 bars to a line was a big help for me, like @jjw says, a whole lot of music is written with a 4 bar repeating pattern, so if you can identify that, the task of memorising is suddenly a whole lot easier.
I’ve found a lot of songs have a 4 bar repeating pattern with exceptions, so it’s the same 4 bar pattern, except in the bridge where it switches to a different 4 bar pattern (often with many of the same chords), or maybe they mix it up for the outro or for a guitar solo.
You’ll still find songs that are a struggle to memorise even with this technique, but it’s good for a solid majority of the stuff I’ve been trying to learn.
Once I’ve worked out the pattern, written it out by hand, and got to the point where I can play it without looking at the chord sheet, that’s when I start using Justin’s memory spacing strategy to get it fully baked in. Seems to be working pretty well so far.