![]() When you are ready, memorize the above to-do list by visualizing the to-do items interacting with the different locations in your room: Mentally walk through your journey a couple of times to make sure it is firmly committed to memory. Now follow the circumference of the room and identify 10 distinct items which can serve as locations. Imagine you are entering the room and then turning right. Take the room you are currently in, or a different room you are familiar with. I suggest you now create your own journey and memorize the above to-do list: I move on the next location, the bamboo shelf. What happened to it? Right, it is flat and a steam locomotive is standing on top of it. To recall the items, I just mentally enter the room again, turn right, and walk along the circumference: The first location was the armchair. He is making a lot of noise and dents in the locker. I visualize Paul banging the locker with a massive grey phone handset. The third location is my bedside locker and the corresponding task is calling my friend Paul. I imagine huge red ATM cards (looking like my bank’s card) sticking out form the top board of the shelf. My second location is the brown bamboo shelf, and my second task is to check my bank account. Backup my computer on the external hard disk.įor the first item on my to-do list, I picture a steam locomotive rolling over the armchair.Now I can use my room to memorize my tasks for the day: I use distinct locations (so only one bed not two) along my journey.I mentally walk through my journey a couple of times to make sure I always use the same locations in the same order.This gives me 10 locations in my room I can use as hooks to file 10 items. Following around the circumference of my bedroom, I get 10 locations: Third is a bedside locker, followed by my bed. Second is a brown bamboo shelf – my second location. The first object I pass by is an armchair, so I choose this as starting point. To create our first journey, let me introduce the room I am currently in: I imagine myself entering through the door and then turning right, walking around the circumference of the room until I arrive back at the door. Also, like with any journey, you need to define a fixed starting point. The order is provided by defining a precise journey with distinct locations along a route you are familiar with. You accomplish this by creating an image or scene in mind, in which the location and the to-be memorized item interact. Each location serves as a hook, to which you visually connect whatever you want to remember. ![]() The method of loci is essentially a visual filing system, allowing you to memorize and recall a virtually unlimited number of items in a fixed order. While giving their speech, they just mentally walked along the same journey through their memory palace, and in each location retrieved the item representing the next key point they wanted to talk about. To remember a key point, they represented it by a concrete item, and visualized that item somehow interacting with a particular location. How did they do it? The Romans mentally placed the key points of their speech in locations along a familiar route through their city or palace. Just imagine yourself, facing an audience and giving a 30 minutes talk to the point, completely without using notes. Giving a speech or a sales presentation from memory conveys competence and authority. In fact, even today most people are impressed by a speaker who talks freely, without referring to her/his notes. If you wanted to be a successful orator, you had to give it from memory. Also, reading speeches to an audience was frowned upon. Unlike today, where paper is cheap, and PowerPoint all over the place, during the times of the Greeks and Romans it wasn’t all that easy to just jot down a 30-page manuscript. The method of loci was invented more than 2000 years ago, and widely used by the Greeks and later the Romans to memorize and give speeches that could last for hours. The good news: It is really easy to learn. ![]() People who have never used it just cannot believe how someone can have such a fantastic memory. It is used by memory performers on stage to memorize 100-digit numbers and the order of several complete decks of cards, students to pass exams, sales people to give a presentation from memory, and by me to memorize the key information of a book, to name just a few. The method of loci, also known as the memory palace technique or the journey method, is probably the most versatile mnemonic filing system ever devised. By Photoglob AG, Switzerland, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons ![]()
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