Hi,
in this thread I’d like to share some of my methods and tricks to remember historical data such as timelines for specific events.
I have been reading this forum quiet a lot over the past 5 months and some of you helped me with great ideas and answered the questions that were on my mind at that time–so I thought why not share a few things with people that might just be starting with mnemonics or the method of loci, or even discuss them with users that are already more advanced.
Before I start let me remind you that I am going to talk about things which made it easier for me personally to remember data when using the method of loci– so this might not be beneficial to all of you although probably none of the information is in any way completely new or original - also: sorry for the long post :b.
Let me begin with the reason I created memory palaces dedicated to remembering historical data a few months ago. In Germany where I come from when finishing a teaching degree in university you got to take some pretty big exams in all 3 subjects you studied, so for the 2 where I had to take 4-hour written exams (2 topics in history, 1 in educational theory) I created 3 seperate memory palaces - one for each topic.
I partially waited to create this thread because I didn’t have my results until yesterday, but now that I know my scores (both straight A) I also felt quiet thankful to all of you that put the information on mind/memory palaces out there thereby helping me to achieve these grades.
So here are the steps I toke in order to succeed in those tests:
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I gathered all the relevant information about each topic and wrote it all down in one big word file for each topic. Since I had to fill 4 hours of writing I ended up with approximately 15-20 word pages for each topic.
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I tried to organize these files in an order that made sense to me. The 2 history topics in chronological order, the information about the pedagogical topic “Inclusion in the German school system” (history; PISA; laws; political, scientific and economic arguments for and against inclusion; political reforms;
and about 5 theories by scientists; personal opinion) in the order I wanted to reproduce the knowledge in an essay question (thats the order I just described). -
I searched for building structures to hold about 60 loci for each palaces.
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I always chose the first loci (mostly front doors, sometimes staircases) to resemble the topic itself through s mnemonic, (e.g. a child in a wheelchair racing down the staircase reminded me of Inclusion).
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For each of the loci I thought about a vivid mnemonic which would interact with it - because I experienced that the liveliness of images and their interaction were the most crucial elements in remembering data.
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Those mnemonics often consisted of a certain historical date/dates (e.g. 731-741 a.d.) and mostly one event (Gregor III. is the ruling pope in Rome).
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I converted numbers of the dates into images through phonetic encoding (1=b/p, 2=n, 3=m etc.), you can find tons of information about that here.
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I converted the event itself or the person involved in an image, very often by making the images perform the action (e.g. killing, electing, signing treaties = story method) or by using people with similar names I knew (e.g. I actually know a “Gregor” but “Georg” also works just fine).
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Sometimes you have to remember names which carry numbers with them as you can see in Gregor III. Since it is crucial to not confuse them (in this palace I also stored data about Gregor I., II. and IV., in the other palace even Gregor VI., VII. and VIII.) I used an easy peg system (from 1 - 10) in which certain objects represent (this can be visually [2=Swan], or phonetically [3/three=tree]) numbers.
Example: When looking at the doormat in my palace I visualize a tiny Gregor on it with a Tree [Gregor III.] in his hands being torn apart and screaming [very vivid image to me] by a maggot [in German: “Made”=31] and a rat [“Ratte”=41]. In case you are wondering I mostly neglected the century as I could easily remember in which time period my topic was situated, although you could as well add it without difficulty.
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All the information I decide to store through mnemonics I listed in one note file on evernote (naturally you can use a number of other programs) by listing the number of the loci, its location in the palace, the historical data and an obvious description of its mnemonic. I like this system for mainly two reasons: 1) safety in case you forgot one mnemonic especially shortly after creating it. 2) In those days when I created these mnemonics, everytime I went somewhere (to class, supermarket, sports) I thought about possible mnemonics and typed them into my cell phone as soon as I found one. Creating mnemonics can sometimes be hard and can take some time, especially when you don’t want images to double or at least not too many times in one palace - this way it doesn’t feel like hard work and you don’t have to waste time sitting in your chair waiting for an idea to strike you.
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Once I completed all steps it took about me about 2 hours to fill up my palace with all 60 images and after tgat I practiced it several times by visiting those palaces in the days before the exam, sometimes very carefully and vividly with my eyes closed sitting on my couch, sometimes throughout the whole day (one beautiful thing I noticed: you never forget where your fictional self was before in your palace before you go on to do something else. Because of this I could visit the first 10 loki on my way to class and another 10 maybe later while taking a shower).
So this was my basic methodology when studying for the written exams and hopefully you could understand all main points in spite of my English.
Now in the following I would like to tell you some of the things and rules I used in my palaces to make it easier for me to remember data and I want to include some of the insights I had while doing it.
As for the tips
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As I use 3 types of peg systems on daily bases (1 visual, 2 phonetic systems in English and Japanese) I used one System to represent months because sometimes I had 5 events to remember in 1 single year. I would then list the year and the month in my first loci and then use pegs to store the months if necessary.
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In some cases I used the story method if a certain event immediately caused other events to happen.
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I created some shortcuts to reduce the number of mnemonics to remember, e.g. everytime an event lasted exactly 2 years (e.g. Boniface traveled to Rome in 722-723) I made the image for 22 absurdly large, e.g. a giant “nun” instead of creating 2 images.
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Windows and glass doors can be a great opportunity to create a fictional mini palace if you try to imagine it like a door to a separate little room. It also makes the window unique and harder to confuse with others.
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When constructing palaces out of buildings that feature many identical staircases, windows, doors, chairs, I try to make each loci unique by adding fictional elements to it such as weather (the floor could be soaking wet due to heavy rain), persons (my neighbor is cleaning the staircase case in front of his door) or architectural elements (could be a different kind of wall or tapestry).
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I try to avoid mnemonics which are too detailed. For instance I decided to use the peg system for names (Gregor III.) and months because because a Gregor wearing a t-Shirt with a 3 printed on it wasn’t memorable enough for me.
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I enhanced the information I encoded into mnemonic images with data I learned through traditional methods (like learning facts from index cards) either because the information did not contain dates or it was general knowledge which was seemed logical and easy to understand.
Lastly my personal reflection on the efficiency of these mnemonic methods in my case:
I studied about 5 weeks for those 3 topics because of 1,5weeks research per topic and maybe 1 week to organize all the data, find and adress all loci as well as create all mnemonics and in addition learn 20 index cards per topic.
Having done that my very first time to this extend it actually felt weird to go through with it because after 4,5 weeks I still hadn’t really learned any information for the tests and couldn’t recall anything in detail. By that time several colleagues, friends and my girlfriend kept asking me about how prepared I was and told me over and over to stop gathering and organizing knowledge and to start learning it already (like everybody else). - also by that time I had only 3 weeks left before the exams.
Now the amazing as well as funny thing was that 4-5 days later when I finished the last palace: I was pretty much done. Meaning that I could recall all the important information like a machine without any difficulty and over the couse of the next week 100% accurate. Also I did no longer care the least bit about being nervous during the exam or having a blackout - because I knew exactly where I had stored my knowledge. On top of that I didn’t worry about the upcoming exam, didn’t struggle with nervousness at all and 2 weeks before the exam the only thing I regret was that apparently I had started my exam preparation too soon.
Now I don’t want to sound too optimistic here. I know that many others might be able learn as much information through hard work in the same amount of time although I know that without my mind palace I am not sure if I could have remembered those approximately 70-100 historical numbers per topic without fail. Also I can not even guarantee that I saved that much time doing it. But learning information this way the learning process itself was not only way more fun, saved me from any potential risks such as blackouts due to nervousness - also during the exam I always knew exactly about the things I still had to write and which things I had used, I could change up the order to fit any particular essay question by scanning through knowledge in mere seconds. And last but not least yesterday during my oral exam - 6 weeks after the written one in educational theory and ) I got a question which was linked to my former topic on the written exam and I could still recall use this knowledge even after 6 weeks not practicing this particular palace.
So that’s it. Now I told you about the reasons and most of my methods to remember historical data. What do you guys think? Do you have made any similar experiences? - if so let me know and I’d be happy to talk about it. In any case again a big thanks to you guys for your help and I hope some of you found my description useful.
- hopefully I could answer your question!