Over the course of my life, I’ve used a lot of mnemonic devices, which are techniques for remembering things. One of the best I’ve found is called the method of loci. Also known as the “memory palace”, this mnemonic involves imagining a particular place and then adding things you want to remember at specific points along a path through that location. The place you imagine can be real or it can be imaginary; some people use buildings from popular fiction and others design their own place. I tend to use the front rooms of my house since I’m extremely familiar with them and I can easily visualize walking through them while “seeing” the things I want to remember. Visualization is often difficult for me, so it helps to use a familiar place that I know very well.
I primarily use the method of loci to memorize lists, especially when those lists contain a lot of things that I can easily visualize. For example, I might memorize a shopping list this way: I’ll put an orange on my front porch, a gallon of milk in the foyer, a box of cereal in the first room, and a pitcher of sweet tea in the next room. If I want to memorize a longer list, I can use more rooms and put more things in each room (maybe one thing on a couch, another thing on a chair, and so on). And the more interesting and unusual I can make the images, the easier it is to remember them. I find it more difficult to use this technique for remembering things that don’t have a strong visual element. However, competitors in the World Memory Championships have found ways to convert numbers, letters, words, and other things into images that they can put in their memory palaces. I’ve had some success with this, although I prefer to keep it simple as I don’t compete in memory competitions.
Even though I enjoy the method of loci, I don’t use it very often. There aren’t a lot of things I want to remember that work easily with this technique. For most things, I’ll either use another mnemonic or just memorize them. However, this mnemonic still comes in handy from time to time. It makes it much easier for me to remember lists that have highly visual things and it’s also fun to use. I hope you found this interesting to read, and, if you decide to try the method of loci, I hope you find it as helpful as I have.