New memory palaces approach

[TheHumanTim]

@cantrememberanything

I feel that 100 might be too many.

It all depends on what you will use it for.

For the periodic table of the elements, 100 loci may not be enough since there are 118 elements.

For practicing speed runs for a deck of cards you may want 52 loci if you want 1 to 1 card image to loci scene structure, or 18 loci if you use a PAO, or 26 if you use a PO, PA, or 2-card system.

Whatever your usage, you should try whenever possible to cater the structure to the information so that it is easy to navigate and recall later on and fits nicely.

For lists or topics that will eventually expand, like the Presidents Of The USA, or the winners of the Best Picture Oscar, it’s good to have an open ended structure that you can add loci to easily.

Either way, I think 100 loci is a lot if its contained within a single area. If it’s structured like 10 unique and clearly distinguishable rooms in a house or departments in a large store, or consecutive buildings along a street, each containing 10 loci to total 100 across several connected areas that form a “meta-palace” that seems to work well, at least for me.

@cantrememberanything

how do you remember the sequence of loci? Do you write it down or draw it?

Yes and sometimes yes. I have an excel doc in google drive and on my phone with tabs for each memory project I work on. Each contains a list of loci in order for the palace(s) that I’ll use for that topic. I’ll occasionally do a quick paper sketch of a birds eye blueprint style layout of my palace with minimalist pictures of a key identifiable feature of each loci, especially if the palace I’m using is fictional or completely self-imagined. This helps me lock in both the path and some of those important focal points.

Example here with picture included:

Building memory skills (& creating accountability)

The drawing doesn’t have to be great, more just so you can use it as a reference and to solidify the path in your mind. It’s not even really required but I found it helped me organize my path and stations along it. Here’s an example of one of my fictional palaces that I used to memorize Super Bowl winners/losers/scores. I created an imaginary football training facility and each area represented a decade. There were areas like Locker Room, Weight Room, Practice Field, etc. Within each area I cam…

I’m not sure there’s any real trick to QUICKLY memorizing a loci sequence to the point of making it second nature. It really is all about practice and visualizing the areas enough to develop a natural recall of them.