A great memory is not a gift that some people are lucky to be born with. Having a great memory is a learned skill anyone can achieve.
The more childlike you allow your imagination to be, the more successful you will become at mastering your memory.
The more crazy and raunchy your imagination is, the easier it will be to recall your important information.
So it’s time to stop trying so hard and start having fun…
- Maybe you have to remember the directions someone quickly gave you to get to a meeting on time.
- How about remembering the name of each new person you meet once you get to that meeting, and also remembering their phone number and what color their eyes are?
- Perhaps you want to remember a speech you have to give.
- Maybe you need to recall a large amount of information for a big exam… and the exam is tomorrow morning!
There is no such thing as a bad memory. There are only untrained minds.
This article is going to quickly introduce you to how your imagination is the most powerful tool you have to remember anything… and perhaps, everything!
Good news! You don’t have to sing silly songs, or pace the house repeating phrases all day long.
The art of remembering is quick and easy.
There is a powerful mind technique that was realized about 2000 years ago. It was used by the Greeks and Romans to memorize hour long speeches. Think about it, 2000 years ago speakers didn’t have computers and access to pens and paper to write down their speeches so they came up with the technique known as the method of loci to creatively recall everything they needed to know whenever they needed to know it.
The method of loci is a process of using your imagination to memorize and recall unlimited information in a certain order. You create a mental image of a building or palace in your mind and associate the rooms, art, furniture, people, pets and other objects to the information you need to recall.
How to use the method of loci, by creating a memory palace:
- Get comfortable and get creative. When you are ready close your eyes and imagine a building. This building can be something completely new that you construct in your mind or it may be something familiar to you, perhaps something that exists in the real world. It can be your home, a library, a school, a museum, or any other place you feel comfortable creating images in.
- Now, think of the route in and around your palace. Get familiar with your palace explore it for a while until you are happy with the feelings you have and you feel confident you know your way around. This step will help you to remember things in a certain order.
- In your palace you may have many rooms, hallways and passages. Know where these specific areas are and how to get to them because now you will be placing what you need to remember inside them.
For example: Let’s pretend you have to memorize a shopping list for your child’s first day of school. Your child hands you her request…
- Colored pencils
- Stapler
- Dinosaur lunch box
- Cell phone with a protective case with a stars on it
As you visualize your palace, imagine, sense and feel the front door is rainbow colored in vertical streaks representing colored pencils lined up in a row. Now realize how the door smells, like pencil shavings.
Open the door and walk into the hallway and sense a giant stapler the size of a couch flying towards you. Once you successfully dodge the stapler walk into the kitchen and notice the Tyrannosaurus lounging at the table eating his healthy lunch of hummus and celery. Finally you enter the office only to find hundreds of phones all ringing at the same time to the sound of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Once you’re done placing the items on the shopping list inside of your mental palace, you can go shopping, without a written list to help you. All you need to do is imagine your front door and you will instantly see colored pencils, the flying stapler, the dinosaur eating his lunch and the cell phones playing a lullaby about twinkling stars.
Remember the stranger and more extreme your visualizations are, the easier it will be to remember them. It’s time to use your child mind.
- To have the most effective memory palace you must memorize it. Practice being inside and exploring your palace until you are sure you know where all the key places and objects are located. Its best to literally draw it into your mind and on paper. Get out your paper and pencil and make a real map of your palace. Once you’re done drawing close your eyes and remember the routes and locations in the proper order. Your drawing should be detailed and colored with phrases to remind you of significant features including size, sounds, smells and colors.
It’s pretty simple and quite fun to use your imagination for serious stuff. You can become a success in the office, get an A on your final exam, and remember your friend’s birthday all by using your imagination. With practice you can start in any location in your palace to remember whatever you need to know whenever you need to know it.