During high school and the start of college, I got forced assignments, tests, essays, quizzes, and homework.

Instead of learning for the sake of learning in itself, I learned to get the best grade on the test. As a result, I lacked passion and interest in what I was studying.

The worst part of studying by far was having to memorize.

Memorizing sucked.

I remember one year while studying for a history exam, I walked up to a friend outside the testing room feeling smug, folded my arms, and asked, "how many times did you read the book? I read it three times."

They looked at me with a coy expression, "I read it five times."

Yup, you heard that right, we thought passive reading of the textbook was the best way to study.

This deadly combination of not enjoying studying and using bad studying techniques led not only to me disliking school but also forgetting most of what I "learned" a few weeks after I learned it.

That Fateful Day...

Then one fateful day I came across a video by Anthony Metivier showcasing the memory palace technique on his YouTube channel.

The memory palace technique involves imagining a location in your mind, like the candy store in town--you know you frequented that place a lot, admit it, and placing memorable imagery inside that associate with what you want to remember. Than to remember the information, you simply walk through your palace in your mind and recall the associated images and information they represent. The memory palace technique is fun, like playing Minecraft on a Saturday evening type of fun.

It turns memorization into a creative engaging act.

Through using the memory palace technique I have not only started enjoying studying again (AND learning outside of school), but I have retained my learnings for much much longer than a few weeks.

In this ultimate guide I'm going to teach you how to make the same transformation through showing:

• The Benefits Of The Memory Palace Technique
• History Of The Memory Palace Technique
• The Five Steps For Creating a Memory Palace
• How To Use The Memory Palace For Different Types Of Information
• Example Memory Palaces
• 5 Most Common Beginner Memory Palace Mistakes
• 5 Beginner Tips For Creating Memory Palaces
• How To Implement Memory Palaces Into Your Study Routine

Make sure to read until the end because the tips and beginner mistakes I share are some of the most valuable you can take away.

I haven't seen anyone else talking about memory techniques discuss them in detail.

Benefits Of Building Memory Palaces

1. Improved Memory Retention: Memory palaces allow you to associate new information with visual, spatial, kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory, auditory, and emotional sensations. Humans have a great spatial memory, memory for novelty, memory for vulgarity, and memory for multisensory things. The memory palace techniques effectively integrates all of these things to make information the most memorable possible.
2. Enhanced Focus and Concentration: Creating memory palaces requires active focus and concentration. In this way the memory palace technique can be a form of meditation. If you want to learn more about the mental health benefits of the memory palace technique check out my article Aidan's Infinite Play 30 The Victorious Mind: The Ultimate Guide to Calm Your Mind and Memorize Anything with Ease.
3. Personalization: A memory palace is a unique creation, tailored to your specific needs and preferences. This personalization can help you to better connect with the information you are trying to remember.
4. More Effective Learning: Changing the modality of information for example from linguistic to imagery, facilitates your understanding of it. Therefore the memory palace technique is a great way for better understanding information.
5. Fun and Engaging: Building a memory palace can be an enjoyable and creative process, making it an effective way to learn without feeling like you are doing work. Way way more fun than going through word only flashcards and playing Fallout 76.
6. Useful for Different Types of Information: Memory palaces can be used to memorize a wide range of information, including names, dates, facts, foreign language vocabulary, and even long strings of numbers.

History of The Memory Palace Technique

The memory palace technique is hands down the best technique for memorizing information we have ever discovered.

According to Lynne Kelly's 2019 book The Memory Craft, it was used by our hunter-gatherer ancestors thousands of years before writing even existed. Because they had to spread their culture entirely orally, they needed a technique that could allow them to memorize tons of information without writing.

Fast forward to Ancient Greece and intelligence was synonymous with memory.

This prizing of memory led to some insane memory feats.

According to Lynne Kelly, "The Roman orator Seneca the Elder had 200 of his students recite a line of poetry of their choosing, one by one, each line unrelated to the last. Seneca recalled all 200 in order, and then proceeded to repeat them in reverse order. It is also claimed that Seneca could repeat 2000 names, having been told them only once. Pliny the Elder described numerous feats of memory, including Mithridates of Pontus, who knew the 22 languages spoken in his domains, and Charmides, who could recite the contents of all the books in the library, or so it is told. Then there was Simplicius of Cicilia, who could recite all of Virgil forwards and backward, according to Saint Augustine."

Finally, memory was also prized heavily during the Medieval period.

Bestiaries, books full of drawings of beasts were popular because the beasts inside could be used by Medieval nobles to create more memorable images. Notetaking was more advanced than ever. Notes were filled with doodles, color, and annotations of all sorts.

However, nowadays the art of memory is dying.

As indexes became more common like with the Bible in the thirteenth century, page numbers and table of contents became commonplace, and finally Gutenberg's Printing Press exploded the proliferation of written work in 1440 the very notion of what it meant to be erudite evolved from possessing information to knowing where to find information.

Quantity of reading is now prized over quality.

In the late 19th and early 20th century John Dewey, an educational reformist, stepped in and began making a case for a new kind of education that prized experiential learning methods over rote memorization. This is all fine and dandy but over a hundred years of progressive education have discredited memorization as oppressive and stultifying, a waste of time.

The effects take themselves into our non-school lives as well.

"We’ve gradually supplanted our own natural memory with a vast superstructure of external memory aids—a process that has sped up exponentially in recent years." - Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer

It's time to bring the memory palace technique back into popular culture.

Step-by-step Guide On How To Create A Memory Palace

Step 1: Choose A Location

Select a location that you are familiar with, such as your house, school, or workplace.

The location should have multiple rooms or distinct areas that you can use to store information. If you're struggling there is a very simple exercise you can go through to create more memory palaces than you will know what to do with. I suggest you do this exercise right now. Go and get a pen or pencil and paper.

I'll wait.

I have my peanut butter to keep me company.

Got it. Good. Go through and write down all the letters of the alphabet. Than go through each letter and come up with every possible memory palace location that comes to mind for that letter. You can start by thinking about people associated with that letter and then move on to places, actions, or objects to spur more memory palaces. For example, I don't have many P memory palaces but I added in Cornell room Kennedy Hall 212 (even though it doesn't start with P) because that's where I watched the movie Parasite (which does start with P) with my friends. Here are some other examples:

A

• Abe's House
• Atillas House Netherlands
• Astrid and Ian's Home
• Alejandro’s House

B

• Beebe Lake
• Becker Hall
• Ben Coddington's Barn
• Byrne Dairy Hamilton
• Brainshop Cornell

C

• Colgate Fitness Center
• Cook Hall
• Cornell Cocktail Lounge and Uris Library

D

• Lounge room in Ganendago where we played Dungeons and Dragons with Rushika, Joaquin, and Nicole
• Diamonds Cornell commons

E

• Esther’s Porch
• Evelyn’s apartment

And all the way A through Z...

By creating this list (it can take a good hour or so), you won't ever run out of memory palaces, especially if you add more over time.

Every time you need to find a memory palace you can refer to this list.

Indexing Your Memory Palaces

What's the usefulness of having the memory palaces organized by the alphabet?

It makes an easy to understand indexing system. As you create more and more memory palaces you will start to have more than you can keep track. You might forget where you stored certain information or what memory palace to put new information in. But when your memory palaces are organized alphabetically it becomes obvious where to store information.

You put it in the relevant alphabetical memory palace.

For example, I put my anecdotes for Speech inside of an A memory palace, Astrid and Ian's home because they both start with A. I stored a quote from Marcus Aurelius I like in an M memory palace. I stored my memorizations from the book Drive in two connected D memory palaces.

The alphabet serves as my brains own index.

Step 2: Plan The Route

Step 2 is to plan the route you will follow using your memory journal.

Your memory journal is the place where you keep all of your associated things related to your memory practice.

Here's mine:

Gotta support the Cornell Brand am I right?

The front is for drawing out your memory palaces while the back is for practicing recall of the information inside from memory.

I recommend you draw out your memory palaces before you try and memorize anything inside of them.

Planning the route in your memory palace is crucial. It involves determining the path you will follow and placing images in specific locations to remember things. Planning the path should only take 1-5 minutes. We aren't trying to create the Mona Lisa here. Simply draw the location you'll use and mark the stations where you'll place the images. Number and organize the stations, and create a column to note what each station represents in the memory palace.

Here's an example I drew out:

The room up above represents Diamonds, an Indian restaurant I went to with my girlfriend a few weeks ago.

Each number in the room represents what are called micro-stations, individual spots in a room that can be used to place images inside of. However, I recommend when you are first creating memory palaces that you use macro-stations, entire rooms that are used to place a single mental image inside of.

It's much easier to create images inside of macrostations when first starting than to use microstations.

Step 3: Create Images That STICK For What You Want To Remember

This is the most fun step of them all.

In this step, you create images that associate with the information you want to remember.

When thinking about how to create an image that is sticky there are only a few things that you have to consider:

• We remember connected things
• Humans have incredible spatial memory
• Humans remember multisensory, vivid, surprising, and vulgar things.

So when putting images into our memory palaces we want to try and take all of these things into account.

But there's one more way to superpower your images so they stick out like a sore thumb, a good thing in this case.

Make them personal to you.

Instead of using any old cup in a memory palace, use the cup your dad has that says "being 60 isn't all that bad!" Instead of using any old bee use Berry Bensen from the Bee movie. Instead of using any old knight use a knights radiant from the Stormlight archives.

How do you build your store of personal associations?

Part of it comes down to simply being more aware of the world.

The more awareness you bring to your everyday life the more personal things you will find to use in your memory palaces. That's part of the reason the memory techniques are such a powerful meditative practice. They make you more aware.

Create a Personal Association List

One way you can find personal things to use in your memory palace is to create a personal association list.

The personal association list is a list of personal alphabetical associations you can use inside of your memory palaces. Just like with creating your memory palace network, write down a list A through Z and then go one by one through each letter thinking of every personal association you can come up with. One of my favorite ways I have done this is by creating a bestiary out of my favorite video game monsters. Bestiaries were books popular during the Medieval period filled with drawn out beasts. I created my own list of monsters from The Witcher 3, Total War Warhammer 2, Terraria and more inside of my personal association that I can use inside of my images.

I create a personal association list a couple times a year and find that it always brings with a ton of new mental associations I can use inside of my images.

The Magnetic Modes and Magnetic Characteristics

The best methods I have ever found on making images sticker is from Anthony Metivier in his course magnetic memory method.

He recommends you make images stick by utilizing the Magnetic Modes. Each magnetic mode involves a different sense of the body and mind. The more of these you encode in any single image, the more magnetic it is in your mind. It's magnetic because it pulls the information you are trying to remember deeper into memory while repelling the information you aren't trying to remember.

The magnetic modes can be summed up with the acronym KAVE COGS which stands for:

K - Kinesthetic

A - Auditory

V - Visual

E - Emotional

C - Conceptual

O - Olfactory

G - Gustatory

S - Spatial

In addition, to the KAVE COGS memory modes you can make images more sticky by implementing the magnetic characteristics as well which are:

I will give one example.

A few days ago I was memorizing a line from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations that went "Not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind." I already had a M memory palace--Morrison Hall at Cornell--drawn out and ready to go for this memorization. The only thing I had to do was create the images. The first step was isolating the uncommon words.

Words like blood, birth, and mind.

Than I tried to come up with a image that would encapsulate the first three. After a few seconds I came up with Dracula--which associates with blood--tied to a table with rope--associating with not--giving birth to a baby that was made of brain matter--associating with mind.

Disgusting I know.

But that's what makes it memorable.

Than I ran through KAVE COGS and tried to add in each magnetic mode. For kinesthetic I felt the pain of giving birth. For auditory I heard Dracula screaming in anguish. For visual I saw Dracula giving birth to a baby brain while tied to a table in Morrison Hall. For emotional I felt Dracula's happiness and relief at having successfully birthed. For conceptual I imagined Dracula being related to blood. For olfactory I smelled the blood from Dracula. For gustatory I couldn't think of anything (not every magnetic mode must be used for every image). Finally spatial was already naturally incorporated because of the image being inside of a memory palace.

The result is an image I can't help but remember and that sentence from Marcus Aurelius forever being in my head.

Step 4: Practice Recall Rehearsal--How To Ingrain Knowledge From Memory Palaces Into Long Term Memory

In this step, we practice recalling our images through a process called recall rehearsal so that we can embed them in long term memory.

Recall rehearsal is the art of routinely going through your memory palace(s) and decoding the information present in them. We have to do recall rehearsal because unfortunately humans are tubes of meat, and have evolved to forget knowledge we don't apply. This rate at which we forget information was first studied and encapsulated in Ernest Ebbinghause's forgetting curve. According to his curve, we forget most information in the 24 hours after consuming something and slowly forget more and more over ensuing weeks, months, and years without recall practice. But if we routinely recall information we want to remember we can fight the forgetting curve through a technique known as spaced repetition.

That's where recall rehearsal comes in.

So how often do we have to recall rehearse?

Dominic O Brien, a very prominent memory champion, recommends you recall rehearse information using the system described below: Day 1: Go through memory palace once. 24 hours later: Go through memory palace once. 1 week later: Go through memory palace once. 1 month later: Go through memory palace once. 3 months later: Go through memory palace once.

Remember that this is a method, not a system.

You can and should change it to work with your memorization needs.

You should change your recall rehearsal practice depending upon your goals. Are you memorizing something you need to have down to a tea, or something more for fun? This will effect how often you recall. Generally I use Dominic's method as a foundation and recall more or less depending on how I feel about the information.

What If You Can't Remember Something While Recall Rehearsing?

First, I would highly recommend you dig deep into if you actually can't remember it or not.

Often times, students give up too early while trying to remember something like while doing flashcards. And with the answer in easy reach we often look at it way too early, sacrificing the memory benefits we might have had if we truly dug into if we could remember the information. That's why I recommend you recall rehearse without having the answer to the information in plane site.

This way, you really have to dig deep before you decide to give in and look for the original answer.

If you do find yourself unable to remember an image, run through KAVE COGS again, adding more of the magnetic characteristics mentioned earlier, or adding more mental images.

Step 5: Expand Your Palace--Create A Memory Palace Network

Once you have mastered a single memory palace, you can create additional palaces for new sets of information.

You can also expand your existing palace by adding more stations, or even connecting to other memory palaces inside of your memory palace--memory palaceception! This is how you come to create an ever expanding memory palace network over the course of your life that grows with you as you grow. And because the brain has more potential for storage than you could ever fill, you are only limited in how much you can memorize by how well you can use the memory palace technique.

Imagine the amount of wonderful things you could memorize.

You could annoy your friends by reciting Shakespeare out of no where in conversation. Or rubbing in their face how much you can remember from a book even years later. Or memorizing concepts for class.

These five steps encapsulate all the things you practically need to know to get started building memory palaces.

If you wanted you could stop reading now and be good. But there are so so many specifics that will help you on your memory creation journey. For the rest of this ultimate guide we will be diving more into advanced techniques of creating memory palaces. You will be learning all the secrets, tips, tricks, and mistakes I wish I had known when starting to create memory palaces.

But there's one thing you have to promise before we dive in.

You need to apply what you learn.

The memory palace technique is useless if you don't practice it. It's simple. But it's by no means easy. You will only feel the benefits IF YOU APPLY THE TECHNIQUE.

Don't let this be another guide you never act on.

How To Use A Memory Palace For Different Types Of Information

The memory palace technique works for every type of information.

Remembering anything comes down to choosing a location, planning the route, turning it into a memorable image, and then practicing recall rehearsal.

Here are all the most common types of information I have found you can memorize with a memory palace:

• Words
• Concepts
• Books
• Names
• Faces
• Speeches
• Quotes
• Numbers
• Formulas
• Lists
• Foreign Language Vocabulary

All of these types of information can be memorized using the information in this blog post except for numbers and foreign language vocabulary which you should probably read more about before doing so.

I will write about how to memorize numbers and foreign language vocabulary in the future but for now you can check out Anthony Metivier's articles on how to use the Major System to memorize numbers and how to memorize foreign language vocabulary.

Examples of Successful Memory Palaces Used By Students

I will give three examples of using the memory palace to remember something.

But remember that no matter how many times you read examples about the memory palace technique, doing it yourself is the only way you will understand.

Example Story Memorization

Firstly, I have used it to memorize stories for my Impromptu storytelling in Speech and Debate.

Take this impromptu story.

During the three kingdoms period, the general Ma Su was tasked with defending Jieting from an invading army led by the famous clever and intelligent general, Zhuge Liang. Despite being warned by his advisers about the strength of the enemy forces and the risks of deploying an untested strategy, Ma Su insisted on deploying an "invisible army" with unmanned tents and fake soldiers to confuse the enemy. The plan backfired miserably because Zhuge Liang himself had used the invisible army strategy before. In effect, he was able to get a surprise attack on Ma Su's army destroying them. This story shows the danger of ignoring outside feedback.

This would take quite a long time to remember rotely, and even if I did, I likely wouldn't remember it years later if prompted.

Instead, I encapsulate this entire story in one image inside a closet on the third floor of my childhood home.

The image has Goku with a Chinese beard--meant to remind me of Ma Su, get it Goku, Ma Su--being whispered to by two Chinese advisors. They are hiding behind a fake tent with fake soldiers, which reminds me of the fake army strategy. Finally, Zhuge Liang sounds like "Huge Long" so I have an image of a super huge long Chinese general on a horse attacking Ma Su's encampment.

I have done this for every one of my anecdotes for IMP.

All the images are located spatially throughout my home in recognizable places, so remembering them is simply an act of "walking" through the home in my head and seeing the images pop up.

Example Book Memorization

Secondly, I have used it to memorize the main insights from a book I resonated with.

The book was Drive: The New Science of Motivation. There's a section that mentions the six problems of using extrinsic rewards to motivate people to do things. Those six things are:

1. It can lead to the over justification effect
2. It can hurt performance
3. It can crush creativity
4. It can promote cheating
5. It can lead to addiction
6. It can shorten time horizons

To memorize this list in order I'm using Diamonds, an Indian restaurant in Ithaca New York as a D memory palace associated with the book title Drive.

Each of the six parts of this list have a image associated with them and I use the books author, Daniele H. Pink as a bridging figure (you'll learn what this is in the advanced techniques section) between all of them. For example, my image for number 3, it can crush creativity is a massive gavel being used to crush (crush) a lightbulb (creativity) held up by Berry Bee Benson (my association for the number 3 in my Pegword system) from the Bee Movie. I have done the same thing for every one of the six things in the list but also for other main ideas in the book.

Example Quote Memorization

Lastly, here is an example of me memorizing a quote Verbatim from Shakespeare.

"When words are scarce, are seldom spent in vein."

Classic quote.

First thing I did was separate the uncommon words from the common. These words were "When, words, scarce, seldom, spent, and vein." Than I created images using the techniques mentioned before out of those uncommon words.

I trust my brain will be able to fill in the gaps when I recite the poem from memory.

The image I ended up with was a massive hourglass (when) in front of my childhood house with a pirate (associates with "are" because pirates say "ARRRRRR") fighting off a bunch of evil swear words (words). A ghost (associates with "scarce" as ghosts scare people) is above the pirate about to pounce on him. There is pirate (are) outside my house door entering a vibrant colored glass dome with a money sign (seldom like sell dome) over it. There is a bloody vein (vain) inside that he inserts a hunk of glowing green cash into (spent).

Now I have a ingrained a beautiful quote into my subconscious for the rest of my life.

Advanced Techniques: Memory Palace Circular Navigation And Anchoring Figures

Circular Navigation

The last thing you want to have become a problem while using a memory palace is getting stumbled upon where you are in your memory palace journey.

However, going with the common advice of starting at the entrance to a memory palace will make this occur.

You will cross your path.

You can circularly navigate to avoid this.

Circular navigation is where you navigate clockwise or counterclockwise around your memory palaces when going through them in your mind. This makes sure that while you are going through your memory palace you don't cross your path. To make things even easier you don't even have to walk around the room in your mind if you don't want.

You can stand at a specific spot and simply peer inside navigating the stations.

Another advanced tip taking inspiration from the circular navigation technique is to start at a dead end in your memory palace rather than the front entrance like many people tell you to do.

This way once you finish navigating a memory palace, you end at the entrance or exit allowing you to connect another memory palace to the exit or entrance.

In effect you can start to build an infinite memory palace network to memorize incredible amounts of information.

This is how you grow your memory to unimaginable heights. The more you memorize, the faster you learn, and the more your memory palace network grows.

Your memory compounds over time.

Anchoring Figures

Anchoring figures are figures you can use as an anchor during a journey through a memory palace.

For example, if you were creating a memory palace for learning German words that start with ab, Abraham Lincoln would be a fantastic anchoring figure. Another example is if you are creating a memory palace to memorize the major insights from books. The author of the book themselves would be a incredible anchoring figure to have in all of your images.

That's why when memorizing the book Drive by Daniel H. Pink I use Daniel himself as a anchoring figure in all of my images.

By using anchoring figures you ground all of your images around a certain figure making it easier to remember them.

How Can We Get Faster In Our Memory Practice?

When you are first starting to use these memory practices you won't be that fast, especially if you came from the world of social media and constant distraction.

You are training your image muscles, learning the techniques, and hopefully eating peanut butter to rejuvenate.

I wish there was some secret magic pill I could give you, but unfortunately, like with all the great things in life getting faster is simply a process practicing more and more.

But the more you practice the more something magical will begin to happen.

You will start to give in control to the memory techniques. Your brain will get so good at creating memorable images that you can start to do so with less and less conscious effort. Sometimes you will come across a number or quote you want to memorize and the memory images will come straight to mind faster than you could consciously imagine. You will submit yourself to the art of memory formation (it is truly art) giving in to your unconscious minds suggested images.

It's a beautiful feeling.

But one that can only come with practice.

Five Most Common Beginner Mistakes Creating Memory Palaces

1. Saving your best memory palaces for important information. Don't procrastinate memorizing because you want to "save" your best memory palaces for later. Get started now. You can always reuse memory palaces.
2. Mistaking memory palaces as a method of storing information. Memory palaces are for helping you get information into long term memory, not for storing the information itself. The hope is that once you have recall rehearsed the memory palace a few times you will only have to go back to it when you are recall rehearsing again. Otherwise, the information is in memory and you can speak about it without going through the memory palace.
3. Thinking you will run out of memory palaces. Firstly, this will take years before it could ever be an issue and you can make more. Secondly, you can reuse memory palaces by getting rid of old images inside of them.
4. Trying to create the perfect images. There is no such thing as a "perfect" image. Often times when you are image in your memory palaces things will just pop to mind. They might not be the best option buy you should use them none the less. Make good enough your slogan.
5. Not starting now. This is the biggest mistake you can make. I can't emphasize this enough. You won't get anything out of the memorization techniques if you don't use the memorization techniques. Memorize anything. Anything! Just get started.

Five Best Beginner Tips For Creating Memory Palaces

1. Make using memory palaces a habit. Every morning I spend 10 minutes practicing my memory. This small amount of time compounds over the long term.
2. Carry your memory journal on your person most of the time. By having your physical memory journal on your backpack or in your pocket, you are much more likely to take it out and start practicing your memory.
3. Start small. Begin with a single memory palace and gradually expand to multiple palaces as you become more comfortable with the technique.
4. Memorize information you will actually use. Don't waste the memory palace technique memorizing a grocery list. Memorize information you will actually get use out of.
5. Talk about your memory practice with others. This will not only give you accountability but might get others in starting their own memory practice as well.

How To Integrate A Memory Palace Into Your Study Routine

The best way to implement memory palaces into your studying routine is to make it a habit.

I recommend you block of a weekend or a few hours to set up your memory palace network, create your Personal association list, and start practicing with creating a few memory palaces. This initial set up while high effort will get the ball rolling and start to tune you to the power of the memory palace technique.

Than use it every day for some amount of time.

I practice the memory palace technique on some learning project for ten minutes before starting my first writing block in the morning.

It's more important that you do something than nothing. You need to start seeing yourself as someone that cares about cultivating a great memory. That means practicing every day.

Like any habit, make the cue for doing the habit more often.

For example just stop on the way to the kitchen or the way to the door to encode just five cards, one word, or whatever it is you're memorizing. Maybe you memorize for one minute before eating your food, going to the bathroom, whatever.

Where To Start? How To Overcome Beginners Paralysis

If you have read to this point, you genuinely care about making a difference in your life.

The question then becomes, where do you start?

I can't emphasize this point enough.

It matters less where you start as that you apply the techniques.

Don't let perfectionism become the enemy of the good.

Memorize something. Something that you use in your everyday life. Not a shopping list. Memorize something that will make you realize the power of the techniques!

If you would like some suggestions on where to start, here is my list of things I might memorize in the future:

• Memorizing my Anecdotes for IMP speech
• Memorize scripture, Bible, Analects, Tao Te Ching, etc.
• Memorize story structure highlights of her
• Memorizing main ideas from books like Coddling of the American Mind, Drive, and more
• Memorize major dates of history
• Memorizing my credit card number or dates for IMP examples
• Create a memory palace summarizing all of history
• Create a memory palace summarizing all of philosophy
• Memorizing names of new people I meet
• Memorizing poetry
• Memorizing favorite lines from books or literature I have read

Pick something and go with it.

Practice for ten minutes a day. No more if you can't, just do something.

Don't let this become another self-help article you read without action.

Creating Memory Palaces Will Transform Your Life--It Transformed Mine

Before discovering the memory palace technique much of my school experience was one of boredom and apathy.

The memory palace technique is making learning a joy again. I reignited my childhood curiosity and began to bring back the creativity and imagination I had in droves as a kid. Through using the memory palace technique I have not only started enjoying studying again (AND learning outside of school), but I have retained my learnings for much much longer than a few weeks.

The more I use it the more I realize it's not just a technique but rather a life philosophy.

Seeing learning as a joyous activity rather than something that should bring pain.

Now you can make the same transformation.

If you enjoyed this article, you should consider checking out my free email course 2 Days To Creating Your First Memory Palace As A Student. In it you will learn:

• The 5-step guide to creating a memory palace
• How to create a memory palace network and personal association list
• My best tips and beginner mistakes for creating memory palaces
• Advanced memory palace techniques

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✍️Blog Post - How I Approach Big Projects : Ali Abdaal discusses his strategy for approaching big projects. I summarized it here because I found it incredibly insightful. I approach projects like this, and it has skyrocketed my effectiveness.

- 🎯Target: What am I trying to achieve? Does it align with my long term goals?

- ⌛Time: Do I want and have the time to make for this project? Grab calendar and block out specific times to work on it distraction-free.

- ✅Tasks: What specific actions must I take to progress? Write a list of next actions and progress on some number each week.

- 💥Troubleshoot: What are the barriers to success? Do a pre-mortem.

- 🫗Transparency: Am I being accountable? Find a way to stay accountable either with a regular accountability buddy or check-ins with people to discuss my progress and challenges.

🎙️Podcast - Secrets of the Massively Distributed Memory Palace With Richard Rubin : What if you could create a network of knowledge that grows with you as your learn more and compounds over time? In this podcast episode, Anthony Metivier and Richard Rubin explore how you can do so by learning how to build a massively distributed memory palace network.

📺YouTube Video - The Most Profitable Niche Is You (Create Your Niche Of One) : The most effective niche when getting into content creation is YOU. You can't condense someone's success in the creator space to a business model. Their personal mix of interests, passions, and personality traits creates their success. It's so much more enjoyable to create content and to consume it when there are a variety of interests, personality traits, and more inside of it.

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