Memory techniques

24 guides to the methods, each ending in something to practise here. If you have never used a mnemonic, start with the first group and read it in order.

Looking for the reference tables? The Major System chart lists a peg for every number from 00 to 999, and the ten-grocery challenge is the link method as a five-minute exercise.

Start here

What a mnemonic is, how to turn a word into a picture, and where to put it. No system to build first.

  • Mnemonic Devices: 14 Types, Each With an ExampleA mnemonic device ties something new to something you already know. Here are fourteen kinds, each with an example, grouped by why they work, with a ten-item list you memorise on the way through and the honest limits.15 min read
  • Link Method Mnemonic: How It Works, With ExamplesTurn each item on a list into a picture and make each picture act on the next, and the whole list comes back as one chain. A worked example, then twenty words in five minutes with no system to build.13 min read
  • The Peg System: Rhyme, Shape and Alphabet PegsA numbered shelf for your memory: the three beginner peg lists, how to hang items on them, and the point at which you should move to the Major System.11 min read
  • The Method of Loci: Build a Memory PalaceHow to memorise things by walking through buildings inside your head. A 2,500-year-old technique, still the best one we have.13 min read
  • 50 Memory Palace Ideas and LocationsYour old school, your commute, the supermarket and forty-seven more places you can already walk in your head: how many stops each gives, how to test a candidate, and when to reuse a palace or build a new one.14 min read

Numbers

Digits become sounds, sounds become words, words become pictures on a route.

  • Major System: How It Works, With ExamplesEach digit from 0 to 9 becomes a consonant sound, so any number reads as words you can picture. The full code, worked examples from this site's 00 to 99 chart and a timed drill to practise on.13 min read
  • The Dominic System: Numbers as People and ActionsDominic O'Brien's number system: ten letters, a hundred people with actions, four digits per image. How it works, how to build your list, and how it compares with the Major System.11 min read
  • PAO System List 00-99: Person, Action, ObjectA hundred rows, built on Major System sounds so every person's name spells their own number. Adopt it whole, swap what does not land, and compress six digits into one picture.22 min read
  • How to Memorize Pi: 100 Digits in a WeekThe first hundred digits, three methods in rising order of power, and a plan that puts fifty picture-pegs on a route through your own home.13 min read
  • How to Memorize Historical Dates and YearsA year is four digits and two pictures: seven famous dates pegged, the century fixed, and a palace walked as a timeline.15 min read
  • How to Memorize Multiplication TablesThe swap rule and the easy tables cut the grid to fifteen hard facts, doubling rebuilds most of those, number-shape pictures fix the stubborn few, and a few minutes a day keeps them.22 min read

Cards

Fifty-two images, one route, and the compression trick competitors use.

  • How to Memorize a Deck of Cards in Two WeeksA picture for every card, a route to put them on, and a fourteen-day plan. The beginner's path to reciting a shuffled deck, with the mistakes that stall it.13 min read
  • PAO System: How It Works, With ExamplesGive every number from 00 to 99 a person, an action and an object, and six digits fit in one picture. The same trick holds a deck of cards in eighteen stops.14 min read

Studying, reading and speaking

The techniques applied to what you actually have to remember: an exam, a language, a book, a speech, a name.

  • Memory Techniques for Studying: What WorksRetrieval practice and spacing first, mnemonics for the facts that refuse to stick, two dated revision plans, a protocol for the night before, and what exercise, place and sleep add.19 min read
  • Keyword Method: How to Memorize VocabularyA sound-alike keyword and one interacting image put a foreign word in your head in thirty seconds. Fifteen worked examples in Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese, the research, the review routine that keeps them, and a ten-minute test you can score tomorrow morning.19 min read
  • How to Memorize Chinese CharactersComponents before characters, one short story per character, the sound clue most characters carry, the honest difficulty of tones, and how many characters each HSK level asks for.18 min read
  • How to Remember What You Read: the MethodFinishing a book feels like remembering it. A before, during and after method: closed-book recall per chunk, a chain or palace for the skeleton, and reviews at widening gaps.20 min read
  • How to Memorize a Speech or PresentationMemorise the points of the whole talk and the words of only the parts that matter: one image per point in a palace, rehearsed with the script closed.16 min read
  • How to Remember Names: The Face-Name MethodNames fail in the first ten seconds. A five-step method that turns a name into a picture and pins it to the face, with a plan for practising it alone.11 min read

Lists worth owning

Long ordered lists that repay a permanent peg set you keep for years.

  • How to Memorize the US Presidents in OrderForty-seven presidencies, forty-five people, and a picture for every number, so 'who was the 19th?' comes as fast as 'who was the first?'. With a seven-day plan and a free drill.15 min read
  • How to Memorize the Periodic TableOne fixed peg per atomic number, so 47 is always a rock and the rock is always silver. Worked tables for elements 1 to 20 and 100 to 118, the Latin symbols, and a three-week plan.16 min read
  • How to Memorize Countries and CapitalsA picture for every country, a sound-alike keyword for its capital, and one room of a memory palace per region: South America in twelve stops, the capitals everyone gets wrong, and the countries with more than one.15 min read

Keeping it, and competing

When to review so it survives, and what the people who do this for sport actually do.

  • Spaced Repetition Schedule: When to ReviewTomorrow, then about a week, then let every clean recall stretch the gap. The forgetting curve with its real numbers, SM-2 worked out in days, and how to review a picture at a locus rather than a fact on a card.15 min read
  • Memory Competitions: Events, Games and ScoringA memory competition times you on remembering digits, cards, words and faces. Here are the ten championship events and Memory League's one-minute games, how each is scored, what a respectable first score is and a twelve-week plan to your first event.16 min read
practise
Reading is the easy half

Every guide links to a drill, and the numbers, cards and words drills score your recall and feed the misses back into your personal dictionary.

Open practice