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Memory Palaces Basics

a list, put away in rooms you already know

You already remember your home in perfect order: the door, then the hooks, then the kitchen. A memory palace borrows that order. Walk a fixed route through a place you know, leave one strange picture of each thing at each stop, and later walk the route again and see what's there. It holds lists, sequences and the points of a talk. It won't help you understand anything.

  • Challenging to start
  • Medium impact
  • Learn it in 2-3 weeks
  • One route, ten stops
a flat, a route, and a shopping list
A floor plan of a small flat with one route through it and six stops, each holding an item from a shopping list The route starts at the front door and runs through the hall, the kitchen and the living room. Stop 1, the doormat: eggs, pictured as eggs cracked across the mat. Stop 2, the coat hooks: bread, pictured as a loaf hung up like a coat. Stop 3, the fridge: lemons, pictured as lemons pouring out as it opens. Stop 4, the sink: batteries, pictured as batteries fizzing in the water. Stop 5, the sofa: stamps, pictured as stamps stuck flat on the cushions. Stop 6, the window: coffee, pictured as coffee running down the glass. Walked back the same day, all six came back. The next day five did; the stamps on the sofa were missed, because the picture was flat and still. The marks are made up to show the method. The place · one route Kitchen Hall Living room Bathroom Bedroom 1 2 3 4 5 6 in at the front door Stop Item The picture left there Next day 1 Doormat eggs eggs cracked across the mat 2 Coat hooks bread a loaf hung up like a coat 3 Fridge lemons lemons pouring out as it opens 4 Sink batteries batteries fizzing in the water 5 Sofa stamps stamps stuck flat on the cushions 6 Window coffee coffee running down the glass Walked back the same day: 6 of 6. The next day: 5 of 6. The stamps were flat and still. Make them move: a sofa shedding stamps as you sit. marks made up to show the method 1 2 3 4 5

The one that slipped is the useful mark. A still, flat picture fades first. Something moving, absurd or a little disgusting is the picture that's still there the next day.

The system

Try it now.

  1. Pick a place you know cold

    Your home, a childhood house, the walk to work. You should be able to see it with your eyes shut, without having to think where things are.

  2. Fix one route, and never change it

    In at the front door, then always the same way round. The order of the list comes from the order of the walk.

  3. Mark ten stops along it

    Things you'd bump into: the mat, the hooks, the fridge. Keep them a few steps apart, and never two of the same kind in a row.

    Walk the empty route twice from memory before you put anything on it.

  4. Leave a strange picture at each stop

    Not "bread by the hooks" but a loaf hanging up like a coat. Big, moving, wrong. The item has to touch the stop.

  5. Walk it back, today and tomorrow

    Shut your eyes, walk the route, and say what's at each stop. Remake any picture that faded, and walk it again in a week.

When to break the rule: a palace holds things in order. It won't make you understand them. For ideas you need to use or explain, testing yourself with questions does more. And clear a route before you reuse it: walk it once with nothing on it, or keep a second route for the next list.

Your palace

Build a route, put a list on it, and walk it back.

Write ten stops in the order you'd walk them, or start from the sample flat. Put one item at each stop with your own picture of it, or ask for ten practice words. When you're ready, walk it back: the items disappear, and you name what's at each stop.

A picture works when the item touches the stop and something's happening: falling, burning, singing, stuck.

The walk back

Fill at least three stops

    Before you start, shut your eyes and walk the route once with the pictures. Then hide them.

    Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. Copy the route if you want to keep it; the walk itself lives in your head.

    The study behind the palace

    After six weeks of practice, people new to the method recalled more than twice as many words as before, and still about twice as many four months later.

    Isabella Wagner, Martin Dresler and colleagues took 50 men who had never used a memory technique and split them three ways. Seventeen practised the method of loci, forty half-hour sessions over six weeks. Sixteen did the same amount of working-memory training instead, and seventeen did nothing.

    Each time, they studied a list of 72 words and wrote down as many as they could. Before training, the three groups recalled about the same, around 25 to 31 words. After it, the palace group recalled 62, against 42 and 36. A day later the gap was wider: 56 against 31 and 21. At four months, those who came back were retested, and the palace group still recalled 50, while both other groups were back where they'd started.

    The honest limits: it was about 17 men a group, the task was a word list, and the four-month retest reused the first list. The training was also far more than a weekend: forty sessions. Expect your first palace to feel slow, and the gains to come from the practice, not from knowing the trick.

    Words recalled out of 72, twenty minutes after study, in Wagner et al. (2021). Memory palace training: 25.2, then 62.2, then 50.3. Working-memory training: 30.7, then 41.7, then 30.4. No training: 28.9, then 36.4, then 27.4. Values before training, after training and at four months. 0 24 48 72 BeforeAfterFour months words out of 72 62.2 50.3 41.7 36.4 30.4 27.4 30.7 25.2 Memory palace training Working-memory training No training
    Wagner et al. (2021), Science Advances 7(10), eabc7606, Table 2. Recall 20 minutes after study. The four-month values are for those who returned: 16, 14 and 15. The before value for working-memory training (30.7) sits just above no training (28.9), which isn't labelled.

    The idea

    Why it works.

    A list of words has no order of its own, so it falls apart. A route through your home has an order you'll never forget, and each stop is a ready-made cue: when you get to the fridge in your head, the fridge asks you what's in it. You're not remembering ten things; you're remembering one walk.

    The strange picture does the other half. A loaf by the hooks is too ordinary to notice. A loaf hanging up like a coat is odd enough that the stop brings it straight back.

    When it goes wrong

    Habits that help.

    • Start with ten stops, not fifty. One room or one short walk is enough for a shopping list or a talk. Add rooms when ten feels easy.
    • Make abstract things concrete. "Budget" can't sit on a sofa. A pile of coins can. For a talk, use one object per point.
    • Walk it the next day, not just today. Today almost everything comes back. Tomorrow tells you which pictures were too weak, and those are the ones to remake.
    • Keep two routes for lists you swap. Old pictures linger on a route you've just used. Alternate routes, or walk one empty before you reload it.

    Go deeper

    Keep going.

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