World map positional clock idea

General Memory Chat
1

Hi, I’m currently halfway through learning all the countries and capitals of the world using my latest memory palace.

My idea for my next project is to be able to instantly find these places on a world map. I currently have terrible geographical skills so came up with an idea with my new memory skills.

I’m trying to overlay a clock onto the world map but doing this is tricky… The clock needs to be set through or almost completely see through to see the map behind.

I will then use the major system or similar to assign a number from 1 to 12 to the countries direction according to the hours, minutes etc.

I am placing my UK location in the centre of the clock… So for instance France would be 6.

Out of interest has anybody else heard of an idea like this… If so please let me know.

I have seen the map turned into characters to visualise country shapes etc but that doesn’t necessarily tell you which direction to look in for the very small countries etc.

I’m also struggling to superimpose a see through clock on the world map… I’ve tried using chat gpt etc to do this but it’s absolutely terrible :zany_face:

If somebody better equipped to create such an image with all the names of the countries clearly readable could do that for me that would be awesome!

Thanks in advance for reading my ramblings

3 Likes
2

Screenshot_20250928_113823_Samsung Notes
Screenshot_20250928_113823_Samsung Notes1920×886 93.2 KB

3

A couple other things you could try is to learn the time zones, and latitude and longitudes.

1 Like
4

Yeah good idea thanks.

All this will come in handy on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ one day :wink:

5

You can use a memory grid/graph as outlined by Lorayne in his The Memory Book

6

What does that entail? Can you give more detail please? I’m new to all of this so I’ve never heard of him and his book.

7

Sure.
Lorayne calls it the Memory Graph, and in the example he gives it is a 10x10 square grid, with columns marked 1 to 10 across the top, and rows marked A to J along the left side. (Of course you could reverse this and have columns designated A - J, and Rows marked 1 to 10…it doesn’t really matter), although I prefer the letters to indicate columns and the rows numbered 1 to 10.

With that setup, left topmost square would have an ‘address’ of A1. Moving across the top, it would continue A2, A3, … A10. The same organization would repeat for rows 1 to 10, thus B1, B2, … B10 etc.

To use it, if you had an area (lets say a skate park) at the top left of your map, it would have an adress of A1. So to remember that the skate park is in that location you could associate an Ape trying to tie a bowtie while on skates (and having a very difficult time doing so).

OK, so the Ape comes from an alphabet mnemonic, the Ape as a standin for the letter A. The image of a tie is a substitute for the number 1 (which comes from the Major System), and the skating as a reminder of Skate Park.

Lorayne actually uses “Ate” as the adress of box A1. He does this by finding an image word that starts with an A, and the very next consonant should represent the number 1, which would be a ‘t’ or a ‘d’ (from the Major System), hence the word ‘Ate’. Using his approach it could also be ‘Add’, for which you could picture a calculator. Thus a calculator would always represent A1 on a memory graph for you.

I advise you to get the ‘The Memory Book’, by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas, it goes over the fundamentals of Mnemonics. You will find the Memory Graph in Chapter 24.

1 Like
8

I think it’s something like that:

If you Google “map grid drawing” you’ll find plenty of examples. Depending which level of detail you want, I would work continent by continent and use a denser grid.

1 Like
9

Thank you for the time spent explaining it to me, I’ll have a look and add it to my toolbox.

Yeah I have the Major system memorised and have used various Loci methods to so far learn… The periodic table in order, a full set of cards with a character for each, and all the countries and capitals using my workplace as a palace with great success.

I also have various books and subscribe to Anthony Metiviers YouTube channel.

I struck upon the idea of the clock as I wondered how I could make my memorisation of countries and capitals more of a practical skill by being able to point to each of them in a map.

After creating the clock I noticed I could remember a string of countries dotted along the same line but at various lengths, tracing it from where I live in the Uk as I placed it in the centre of the clock.

I then discovered the monk Fenaigle from the 1700s who used a similar system to mine but numbered 1-5.

I’ve heard the Giordano Bruno saying that goes
‘anyone who thinks long and hard enough about the techniques will come to the exact same conclusion.’

This seems to be true of the clock idea.