Are you forever making lists, so that something is not forgotten?
Have you ever walked into a room to find something, only to forget what you were looking for?
I’m sure most of us have at some point. Memory is a funny thing, but it isn’t something that is destined to worsen. Instead it is something we can improve, maintain and strengthen at any age and here are some tips from the experts to help us all.
Train your Brain to Remember
Before we dive into the specific techniques themselves, let´s discover a little more about what the memory palace technique involves. The technique utilizes the fact that our brain is extremely good at remembering places we know and strong visual images, so it combines the two.
Once we have mastered the technique, we should be able to “place” the items we want to remember within our memory palace and extract them quickly as we mentally walk around it.
Once learned, this technique is very versatile and can be used to remember almost anything, from a shopping list, to family birthdays and more.
First things first, we need to decide where our memory palace will be.
Decide on your Memory Palace
Your memory palace should be a location or route you are already very familiar with. It could be a walkthrough your home, your commute to work or your favorite jogging route – the choice is yours as long as you know the journey well. For the purpose of this blog, I´m going to be choosing my home in Montana as the example.
Attach Strong Images
Once we have selected the route for our memory palace, we should attach a strong image to the items we want to remember. Let´s start with a simple shopping list.
The first item I need to pick up from the grocery store is some salmon for dinner and as my memory palace is my home, I will start at the front door. Now, I need to place the fish at my front door using a strong visual image. Perhaps the fish is escaping under the door, perhaps it is trying to bite my toes even – the more extreme and memorable the better.
The third item on my shopping list is oat milk, so as I brave the salmon and finally walk through my front door in my memory palace I have a large chandelier hanging directly in front of me. Let´s visually turn this into an oat milk waterfall, that splashes us as we walk past.
Now, we are only three items into the shopping list, but I think you get the idea. When I arrive at the grocery store, I will mentally walk through my memory palace and quickly recall the biting salmon at the front door, the flower meadow I escaped to and the oat milk waterfall chandelier. It works and I am actually able to recall the items with no list in sight.
Review and Maintain
I´m told that no memory lasts forever without a little work, so we should review and walk through our memory palace route if the information needs to be retained long-term. With repetition and a little work, we can commit almost anything to memory and the days of lists could be behind us.
Let me know if you use the memory palace technique and how it has benefited you? I am new to this journey, but its already making things so much easier for me. Give it a try for yourself and let me know how you get on.
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