One number, four suits
The Eights in tarot
Movement, and how much of it you control.
Eight is momentum, and the four cards run the full range from perfectly directed to entirely stuck.
Eight of Wands is eight staves in flight, the fastest card in the deck, everything arriving at once. Eight of Pentacles is a craftsman making the same thing for the thousandth time, movement so controlled it becomes skill. Eight of Cups is walking away from a stack of cups that were fine, under a clouded moon. Eight of Swords is bound and blindfolded inside a fence with a large gap in it.
Ask what is moving and who is steering. In two of these the answer is you and in one of them the answer is nobody.
The four Eights
The same idea in four elements. Reading them side by side is the fastest way to see what the number is doing and what the suit is doing.
Eight of WandsWands · Fire read the full meaningspeed, momentum, news
Eight of CupsCups · Water read the full meaningwalking away, searching, departure
Eight of SwordsSwords · Air read the full meaningfeeling trapped, powerlessness, restriction
Eight of PentaclesPentacles · Earth read the full meaningdiligence, practice, skill-building
The rest of the sequence
Ace through Ten, then the four court ranks. Reading down this list is reading the minor arcana as one story.
Number crossed with element
This is the whole trick to the minor arcana. Forty numbered cards look like forty things to memorise and are really ten numbers crossed with four suits. Learn what a Five does and what Cups are, and the Five of Cups is constructible before you have ever read its page.
The lesson on the numbers, Ace through Ten teaches the sequence properly, and the one on the court cards covers the sixteen that need their own study.