I’ve read about memory techniques off and on through the years, but never have been able to use them practically. I’m interested in how you folks practice on a daily basis, how you try to make the techniques very practical. How do you work at remembering names? Any practical suggestions would be welcome.
Maybe try to tackle the problem from the other end? Instead of taking a memory technique and finding a way to use it, select a problem you have and ask yourself how it can be solved (by memory techniques and/or other means, no need to be exclusive).
About names, here’s how I do it: Remembering Conversations and Meetings at work with a Memory Palace - #2 by Hari-P
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Hi. I used to study a little bit but I lernt so late. I dont understand well the palace. I use other things. You can try link method is not son powerful but is easy. For names you can relate it to something easy and create images.
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I was going to post on a similar topic, but I will just add to this thread.
I think this would be a valuable skill to have, but I am not good at it. I think many people who are really good at these techniques, and enter memory contests and such, take to it pretty easily. I do not.
Learning a basic pegging, or location system is fairly easy. I have a few houses (mind palace), as well as a simple pegging list of 20 items. I have thought about building a set of playing card pegs. And I think I could, with a small amount of work, memorize a 50 or 100 item peg list. My current pegs could be sharpened. I have not used them in a while. But this is all doable.
The problem I have is in associating the new items I want to remember with my pegs and locations. It is very slow. I find it hard to visualize. Simply knowing my peg lists is not very useful. This is most likely because I do not practice enough. That is all it should really take
I find it hard to come up with lists of things to practice with. It sounds like that should be easy. But I find it very difficult. I need to practice memorizing a list every day. Perhaps more than one. I need to start slowly with a small list. Start with 10 and work my way up. To be honest getting up to 50 or 100 would be more than sufficient for almost anyone for practical purposes. And also learning to remember two or more lists at the same time also needs to be practice.
I just started thinking about this again recently. And my solution, at the moment, is to try AI
I am going start asking chat-gpt to come up with small lists of things to memorize. 10, then 20 and so on. I will take my time and not try to do it faster than I am able. I think that might work. I think I just don’t give myself enough practice at the easiest basic levels.
You might try that also. Be a little patient with yourself. I have taught unix computers and chess to many people. It is okay and necessary to be a little stupid at the beginning.
Suggestions on good queries for that AI to ensure the best practice material is welcome.
Anyway that is my plan
Try to “see” the things. not thinking about it. Im trying that and seems im gettin better.
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For names, i naturally remember faces pretty well. So when I’m meeting a new peraon, i just try visualise another person, who i already know, who happens to have the same name or one that is similar and i mentally place them with the person i am meeting. I also tell people when i meet them that I’m bad with names, so that hopefully they don’t mind me asking for their names a multitude of times.
Hi. That’s like a faces memory palace 
I can tell you only what worked for me very well: I got a liking in the Major-System to remember numbers. I made a list of all Numbers (00-99) with People, animals and whatever came to mind to attach those to the numbers. I put them all into Memory palaces, so that I could go through them without the need for flash cards or the list. Therefore, I had a memory exercise on two levels: practice using memory palaces AND getting my numbers down.
Nowadays, barely one day gets by without me using the Major system on licence plates, telephone numbers, addresses, etc. Of course, nowadays I don t need the MP any longer. But it was very useful in the beginning.
Hi. How many Major loci did you put in one locus of the mp?
Hi Biondi, I used 5 Memory Palaces (3 doctors’ offices and a gas station) and placed around 25 numbers in each mp.
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Hi @racerx,
Using AI to generate progressive practice lists is a brilliant idea to bridge the gap between knowing a peg list and actually practicing associations. If you don’t give your brain a consistent sandbox to play in, the visual links feel clunky and slow.
To get the most out of your AI prompts, the trick is to ask for concrete, visually descriptive data rather than abstract concepts. Abstract words are notoriously hard to visualize.
Here are three distinct prompt templates you can feed into an AI right now to get tailored practice material, starting from basic pegs up to sequential narrative palaces:
1. The “High-Vividness Concrete Object” Prompt (For 10-20 Item Peg Lists)
“Act as a memory coach. Provide a list of 10 completely unrelated, highly concrete physical objects (e.g., ‘a leaky bottle of bright blue ink’, not just ‘ink’). Avoid abstract concepts. List them sequentially from 1 to 10 so I can practice linking them to my peg system.”
2. The “Action-Reaction” Prompt (To fix slow association speed)
“Give me a random list of 15 pairs of items where the first item can easily smash, spill, melt, or explode onto the second item. I want to practice fast, dynamic association by visualizing quick actions rather than static pictures.”
3. The “Scriptural Breakdown” Prompt (For deep, practical daily study)
If you want to practice techniques on something deeply meaningful like scriptures or philosophy, you can ask the AI to break text down into visual segments. This is how I personally maintain motivation. Try this:
“I want to memorize the Bhagavad Gita sequentially using a memory palace. Give me Chapter 1, Verse 3. Provide the transliteration, the exact word-by-word meaning, and a vivid, concrete 3D scene description of the battlefield context that I can anchor directly onto a locus in my palace.”
Once you get the AI lists, try setting a physical timer for 5 minutes. Don’t worry about being fast at first as you said, it is completely necessary to feel a little slow at the beginning!
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Great explanation.