Here’s some fantastic knots you can use that are easy to remember. Best of all you can do most anything with just these knots.

The Grapple hitch and the Zeppelin knot. The grapple hitch is fast and great to tie onto stuff and the Zeppelin is the best way to join ropes period.

http://www.skytopia.com/project/articles/knot/knots.html

I really like the Farrimond friction hitch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrimond_friction_hitch

Blake’s hitch. Tree climbing hitch that you use to go up a rope while the hitch clasp the rope. What’s so good about this is it’s easy to remember, it’s grasp is super, super strong, it won’t slip at all if you set it and it’s easy to move the hitch up by pushing on the coils from the bottom or the top. Pull on the rope to the left in the diagram to lock it on the rope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_hitch

If you want to make a loop in the middle of a rope this is probably the easiest way that’s simple to remember. Make a loop and twist it the same direction twice. Pull around and through the first loop twist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_butterfly_knot

Here’s a great video on the Truckers hitch to tie things down. I like the last one. Easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvgFyqFZK54

If you make several loops instead of one before you tighten you have a pulley system that can produce tremendous force to hold down the load. Look at these pictures of a versatackle to get the general idea.

http://www.onpointpreparedness.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/versatackle.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatackle_knot
http://notableknotindex.webs.com/Versatackle.html

This is good for tying bottles, buckets or other containers you want to hoist.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Barrel_Hitch_knot.png

Nice video of barrel hitch. Hit the numbers and letters to advance.

http://www.animatedknots.com/barrel/#ScrollPoint

Last but not least you need to be able to lash sticks together. This method uses the least rope and is fast and super strong, tourniquet lashing.

http://scoutingrediscovered.com/rediscovering-the-tourniquet-lashing/

I made this because I wanted to find out what are the basic knots that I need for just about any situation. These knots are all as Trump would say,”Highly Rated”, meaning the people who study knots give them high marks for being strong and easy to untie which is just as important as tying. I looked at all kinds of knots and these seemed to be easiest to remember. Some knots are really great but they’re impossible to remember if you don’t use them every day. You can tie these a few times and they’re fairly easy to remember. They’re kind of basic and you can mix and match them to do most anything.