Memory Palace Training
Turn your brain into a filing cabinet made of weird mental images.
The memory palace (method of loci) is a 2,500-year-old memorization technique where you mentally place items you want to remember in specific locations of a familiar place — your house, your commute, a video game map. The weirder and more vivid the images, the better it works. Memory athletes use this to memorize entire decks of cards in under a minute.
How to start
- 1Pick a familiar route — your apartment, the walk to the store, your school hallway.
- 2Identify 10 specific spots along that route (front door, couch, fridge, etc.).
- 3Memorize a grocery list by placing each item at a spot with a vivid, absurd image.
- 4Walk the route in your mind. Each station triggers the image and the item.
- 5Test yourself. You'll be shocked how well it works on the first try.
What you'll need
- Your brainEssentialFree
- A list of things to memorizeEssentialFree
- Anki flashcard app (free)Nice to haveFree
Where to learn more
Plot twists
Ways to spice this up when the basics get boring.
- Memorize a deck of cards. Time yourself. Compete with friends.
- Build a palace using a fictional location — Hogwarts, the Shire, your Minecraft house.
- Use it to memorize song lyrics, speeches, or exam material.
- Create increasingly absurd images — the funnier, the stickier the memory.
This technique is weirdly great for ADHD because it rewards bizarre, creative thinking. The more unhinged your mental images, the better your memory gets.
The technique was invented by the Greek poet Simonides after a building collapsed at a banquet. He identified the dead by remembering where each guest had been sitting.
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