I am also a science writer, so welcome - good to have you here. No idea if any of this will be of use, but I am keen to hear more of what you are doing. I memorise for permanency and wouldn’t have a hope in any competition. I can’t do things fast or under pressure. Pity. But I can do them for the long term.
Bateman: I must check out the links you pointed to. I didn’t know about them. Thank you.
The worries with overlapping information in a single location is not, in my experience, a problem. I have four long journeys, with multiple information bits in each location and never seem to get confused. In fact, they often give me a link.
As for adding new locations, that’s a breeze. I couldn’t cope with more than 10 locations in a room, though. I’d really appreciate a description of your memory palace and the way you do so many locations. Sounds fascinating!
I have 10 locations in a room, every fifth marked by being a window, with the first the door. When I wanted to have locations that I could add a lot of information into, I decided that one portion of a room was not enough, so I headed off around the block with the dog. Each house or shop is a location. For example, I have all 242 countries of the world in one journey, around the house and then down to the shops and back. I also have the twentieth century, year by year, encoded into some of that journey, and some of the bird families discussed below. Another block does history - marked out in time segments. Another prehistory, again in time segments. So each country or time can have more and more added because there is so much detail in a house or shop to link to.
I am currently doing a new one using a miniature space - modelled on the African hand-held memory board known as the lukasa. Mine has over the 82 beads and shells I need glued on for the 82 bird families for our state, and then I use journeys along streets for any family with more than 5 birds in it. I use linked stories for the birds in each family - the largest being the 36 honeyeaters. I am getting to know the memory board so well that I don’t need it with me. My goal is to be able to do the 403 birds in taxonomic order, with family names, by Christmas. I’m married to a keen birder, so he likes the idea of having a walking checklist in tow. I’m keying in key identifying features as well.
I am doing other topics using playing card decks (standard and tarot) and my palms as memory aids. They are miniature memory palaces in a way. One day, I’ll be able to compare all the methods, as long as I stop adding more and more. It’s such fun!
Welcome!