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One of the most useful and commonly used mnemonics (or mnemonics) is the memory palace, a place or a number of places in your head where you can store information that you want to remember. With a little time and practice, anyone can build a memory palace, and they are useful for more than just memory competitions and single factual memorization.

To step

1. Come up with a floor plan for your palace. Even though a memory palace can be a completely made-up place, it is easier to base your palace on a place that actually exists and that you know well. For example, you can use your bedroom for a simple palace. You can base a larger memory palace on your house, a church, a walk to the convenience store or the entire town or village where you live. The larger and more detailed the real place is, the more information you can store in the corresponding mental place.
2. Establish a route. If you have to memorize things in a certain order, it is important that you follow a certain route through your palace, both in the real world and in your mind. So once you've decided what your memory palace looks like, think about how you're going to walk through it. If you don't need to memorize things in a certain order, then this step is unnecessary for you. Still, it can be useful because this way you can better remember your palace.
3. Record which places you will use in your palace or along your route to store information. When you visit your memory palace, put individual things you want to remember (for example, a number, a name, or part of a speech you are about to give) in specific places. That's why you should record as many spots as you think you need. Walk through your structure or along your route and pay close attention to the surroundings. If your palace is actually a route, such as the road you take to get to work, you can use landmarks along the way to store information: for example, your neighbor's house, an intersection, a statue or a flat . If your palace is a building, you can put things in the different rooms. In the rooms themselves you can then identify smaller storage spaces, such as paintings, furniture, and so on. It is important that you ensure that the places you choose clearly differ from each other so that you do not confuse the different locations.
4. Memorize your palace. If you want your memory palace to work for you effectively, then you have to store it perfectly in your memory. The best way to do this is to actually draw a floor plan (or a map, if your palace is a route) showing which landmarks or hiding places you have chosen. Try to visualize your palace when you are not there and compare the image you have in mind with your floor plan to make sure you have memorized each location and put them in the correct order. Picture the landmarks in as much detail as possible: make sure to also memorize the colors, sizes, scents, and other salient features.
5. Put the things you want to remember in your palace. Once you have built your palace and you have instilled it firmly, you are ready to use it. Put a manageable amount of information in each storage place. For example, if your palace is your home and you are trying to memorize a speech, you can put the first few sentences on your doormat and put the next few sentences in the keyhole or hang on your door. Don't put too much information in one place, and if there are things you need to keep separate, put them in a different place. Make sure to put things along your route in the order you need to remember them, if applicable.
6. Use symbols. You don't necessarily have to store a whole row of words or numbers in a particular location to be able to remember this. Trying to do this can make it impossible to use and also be counterproductive. Typically, in each location, all you have to do is store something that will refresh your memory, something that will lead you to the actual piece of information you are trying to remember. For example, if you want to remember a ship, imagine an anchor on your couch. Symbols represent something bigger. They make your memories easier to grasp, but they can also work more effectively than imagining the actual thing you're trying to remember.
7. Be creative. The images you store in your palace should be as easy to remember as possible. Images are generally easier to remember if they are strange and unusual, or if they are associated with a strong emotion or a personal experience. The number 124 is not exactly memorable, but an image of a spear in the shape of the number 1 chopping a swan in the shape of the number 2 into 4 pieces is. It may be a gruesome image, but that is precisely why it is easier to remember.
8. Save other mnemonics in your palace. There are much simpler mnemonics that you can use in conjunction with a memory palace. For example, when you need to memorize a large amount of information about a piece of music, you can imagine walking into your kitchen and seeing a farmer drinking a soda there. This evokes the mnemonic "Een Goede Boer Drinkt Fris", with which you can remember the order of musical notes on the staff (EGBDF).
9. Explore your palace. When you have filled your palace with imaginative images, you have to walk through it and start looking at those images. The more you explore your palace, the easier it is to remember the information contained therein when someone asks about it. In your mind, for example, you want to see James Joyce sitting on the toilet as if he really belongs there and is actually part of the interior.
10. Use your palace. Once you have memorized the contents of your palace, you can remember the information simply by walking or looking around in your mind. If you must give a speech, follow your route in sequence as you address your audience. For example, if you need to remember that your girlfriend's birthday is July 1, go to your bedroom where Julius Caesar is jumping on your bed to U2's song "One". With practice, you will be able to start anywhere in your palace or along your route to remember a specific piece of information.
11. Build new palaces. You can use your memory palace over and over again if you only need to memorize something for a short time. Simply replace the existing content with new images and information, and you will soon be able to remember only the new content. If you have to memorize the contents of your palace for a long time, leave that palace as it is and build new palaces where you can store new information as needed. If you have stored all the phone numbers of your friends, relatives and acquaintances in your house, you can walk to work if you want to remember the order of a deck of cards.

Tips

• There are many variations of the memory palace, such as the "Roman Room" and the "Journey." These are all based on the Loci method, which came about after recognizing that people are very good at remembering places. If you can associate abstract or unfamiliar ideas with a known location, it is much easier to remember the things you want to remember.
• Hold on. The memory palace is a very powerful tool, but it is not always easy to master. If you're looking for a quick fix for remembering things, grab a pen and paper. However, if you really want to improve your information retention skills, take the time to learn and practice this method.
• In the World Memory Championships, the best participants memorized the sequence of 20 decks of cards that had been shuffled in an hour. In addition, among other things, they also memorized more than 500 random numbers in fifteen minutes. Do you think you can do that too? Believe it or not, almost everyone has the ability to put in such amazing performances. Participants in memory competitions do not necessarily have a better memory than other people. Instead, they learn and practice a variety of mnemonics and mnemonics to improve their skills at learning new information quickly and memorizing almost anything.
• You must prepare each new palace in the same way as you did for your first palace. So it's best to build new palaces before you actually need them.
• There are a number of books and products available to help you improve your memory. This way you can learn how to build a memory palace. However, this can be very expensive and not all books are suitable for everyone. Practice the steps outlined in this article and you can save some money.
• Also keep in mind that thanks to the computer, you have many ways at your disposal in which you can easily build your own digital palaces, or simply choose one of the many structures you can find on the internet. You can even take a virtual tour whenever you want. Because the effect of this is stronger than with a regular drawing, you can remember a digital palace faster and easier.
• You can use items that have the same initial letters as the word you are trying to memorize. This method is useful for words that are new to you. You can use a dictionary as an aid in this case.