Method of loci

if you keep forgetting how to use memory techniques i'm going to give you a system that makes the techniques show up in your brain when you actually need them without having to memorize a pile of mnemonic jargon i'm talking about all the terms like memory wheel memory palace journey method roman room pao system major system etc and the solution begins with something almost embarrassingly simple.

Keep a memory journal, maybe two.

Write down the techniques you're learning and sketch the memory palaces you're developing in your memory journals.

Most importantly, keep a record of yourself actually using them by testing your recall in these journals, by writing out from memory what it is you're learning.

This is so important because there's a strange chicken and the egg problem.

Now, it doesn't come up every day, but easily, once a month, somebody asks me some version of, how am I supposed to remember all of these memory techniques? And that question is actually more interesting than it sounds.

Because first of all, there are a lot of names, there's a lot of moving parts to remember, and sometimes it's confusing.

What is a mind palace? Is it different than a memory palace? Is it different than the journey method and the method of loci? Depending on who you're learning from, you can wind up thinking that you're looking at four or five different things.

They sold mnemonic training courses to executives.

Memory palaces, peg systems, the whole package.

The pitch was that these techniques were for winners who wanted an edge.

Never for people with problems!

But he'd also written down three other passwords, and he couldn't remember which one was which.

So he tried all four, locked himself out, and blamed the mnemonic training.

The man selling memory palaces was using a sticky note.

Everyone was.

And that kind of shit.

Yeah, I drove to Nacuspa recently to give a talk, but Memory Palace is everywhere that I'm given.

Oh, yeah.

And the brother Trevor McKeown and I, who's a local archivist and a librarian, we drove up there and drove back.