How to build a memory palace with the method of loci

Years after moving out, most people can still walk through their childhood home in their heads and know which way the front door swung and where the kitchen light switch was.

The method of loci, also called a memory palace, puts that memory for places to work. You picture each thing you want to remember at a stop along a route you already know, like the walk from your front door to your kitchen. Later, you walk that route in your head and pick each item back up. Your home already holds the order, so all you add is the pictures.

If you've decided you just have a bad memory for lists, build one palace before you believe that.

Quick answer: How do you use the method of loci?

• The method of loci, or memory palace, is a memory technique where you picture each thing to remember at a stop along a route you know, then walk it in your mind to recall them in order.

• To build one, you pick a place you know, choose 10 stops in a fixed order, turn each item into a vivid picture, put one picture at each stop, and walk the route twice.

• A memory palace works best for things that come in order, like a shopping list, the points of a talk, or names around a table.

• You can use your first palace the day you build it, but getting fast takes weeks of short practice, and each new list needs its own route.

What is the method of loci?

"Loci" means places, so the name translates to "the method of places," and a single stop is a locus. You'll also see it called a memory palace, a mind palace, the journey method, or the Roman room.

It works because you find your way around a familiar place without thinking, and you remember a picture more easily than a word on a list. It's one of the oldest mnemonic devices, memory aids that tie something new to something you already know.

How do you build a memory palace?

1. Pick a place you know by heart. Your home is the easiest start, but your walk to work does the job too.

2. Choose 10 stops in the order you'd walk them. If you hesitate anywhere on a practice walk, swap in a clearer stop. Make every fifth stop one you'd never miss, so you always know where you are. Roman speakers got the same advice in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a handbook on public speaking.

3. Turn each item into a picture you can see, hear, or smell. Make it big, make it move, or make it a little absurd.

4. Put each picture at its stop, and make it touch the stop. Cracked eggs go on the door handle itself, not somewhere near the door.

5. Walk the route and say each item out loud. If a stop comes up empty, sharpen that picture, and walk the whole route again later in the day.

What does a memory palace look like?

Say this week's list is eggs, bananas, coffee, spinach, olive oil, bread, lemons, rice, cheese, and dish soap, and your palace is your own home.

In the store, you start at the sticky door handle and walk on, and by the time you push through the bubbles at the back door, all 10 items are in your cart.

Your first try at a picture won't always hold. Say you'd put "a bag of rice in the fridge" at stop eight. The next morning, you open the fridge in your head and find nothing. A bag sitting on a shelf never did anything. The fix is to make something happen right at the stop, so you open the door and rice pours out over your feet.

How do you use a memory palace for a talk or for names?

The points of a talk

For a talk, build the palace in the room where you'll give it. Say you're giving a five-point update at work on the budget, a new hire, the launch date, a customer's feedback, and next steps.

As you talk, you glance around the room, and each spot hands you your next point.

Names around a table

For names, the stops are the seats. At a dinner with five new people, picture each name, or something that sounds like it, at that person's place as you go around the table: a rose floating in Rose's water glass, a marker scribbling on the tablecloth in front of Mark, Priya prying the lid off a jar, a can of soup on Ken's plate, and a small sun glowing on Sunil's chair. Later, you picture the table and go around it seat by seat. It's the same trick the method started with, in the story at the end of this page.

How long does it take to learn a memory palace?

Plan on a few weeks of short, regular practice. In a 2017 study in Neuron, people new to the method practiced it in 40 sessions of 30 minutes over six weeks, and their weekly best at memorizing random words in five minutes rose from about 17 words to about 42.

The trainees used a simple rule you can copy. Each practice list started at five words and grew by five every time they recalled all of them. Your first week can look like this:

• Day 1: Build one palace with 10 stops, place five items on it, and walk it that evening.

• Day 2: Walk yesterday's route before you check the list, then fill all 10 stops.

• Day 3 or 4: Build a second route for your next list.

• Day 5: Test yourself on both routes, and add five stops to whichever one you got perfect.

That Day 2 walk is active recall: You pull the list out of memory instead of rereading it, and you do it a day later. Elevate is built on those same two habits, active retrieval and spaced repetition. Two of its memory games practice what a palace does best, lists and names:

• Retention helps you practice using your short-term memory to recall lists of items.

• Name Recall teaches you how to use mnemonics to remember people's names.

Both games are part of Elevate Premium, and the yearly plan starts with a seven-day free trial. If you'd like a few minutes of recall practice to go with your first palace, try Elevate's memory games.

Does the method of loci actually work?

Yes. A memory palace helps people remember things in order.

• A 2021 review of 13 randomized trials, mostly based in university settings, found a medium-sized benefit.

• In the Neuron study, 51 men were split into three groups. The group that trained with the method improved more on a 72-word list than a group that trained working memory and a group that didn't train, and four months later, the method group still recalled more than both.

• In a 2003 study of top memory competitors, nine of 10 used the method for some or all of their tasks, and their memory "was not driven by exceptional intellectual ability or structural brain differences."

That last finding is the encouraging one. What set those champions apart was a spatial strategy, the same one you'd use to walk your grocery list from the front door to the back.

When should you not use a memory palace?

Skip the memory palace when a written list is easier or when you need to understand something rather than remember its order.

In a 1988 study of 105 students, people who learned three lists on the same places still got a boost from the method, but the lists got in each other's way. So give each new list its own route.

The bigger risk is that you stop using it. In a large trial of 2,832 adults, the group taught a set of memory strategies, a memory palace among them, had lost its memory gains 10 years later. People in every training group still reported less trouble with daily tasks. Another analysis of that trial found that up to about a quarter of the people trained seemed to be using the method after training. Those people gained more right after training, and their gain faded no faster than other people's. A memory palace helps the people who keep using it.

Where does the method of loci come from?

The method starts with a legend that the Roman orator Cicero passed on. The Greek poet Simonides of Ceos left a banquet in Thessaly just before the roof fell in, and he named the dead by where each guest had sat. In Cicero's telling, Simonides drew the lesson that you can store pictures in places, the way letters sit on a wax writing tablet. The Rhetorica ad Herennium, by an unknown author and perhaps written around 86 to 82 BCE, set out the method, and Roman orators such as Cicero and Quintilian used it to keep the points of their speeches in order.

Frequently asked questions

What is the method of loci in AP Psychology?

The method of loci in AP Psychology is a mnemonic device that links each item to a familiar location in a fixed order, so you retrieve the items by mentally walking those locations. For a class example, use the 10-stop grocery route above.

Is a mind palace the same as a memory palace?

Yes, a mind palace and a memory palace are the same technique under two names. The mind palace in TV detective shows is a loose, dramatic version of it. The real one is quieter, a walk through your own home with one picture waiting at each stop.

Do memory palace pictures have to be strange?

No, they don't have to be. McGill University's Office for Science and Society reports that ordinary pictures may work as well as bizarre ones, and that the benefit may have "little or nothing to do with the path itself and everything to do with the loci." Tie each picture to its stop, and make it strange only when that helps it stick.