Mnemonics Course (Part 6) – The Journey Method

I’m really excited to share this strategy with you! It’s really great for expanding your short-term memory!

You can use it to memorize (among others):

  • presentations
  • shopping lists
  • vocabulary
  • anatomy
  • deck of cards
  • dynasties
  • people’s names at parties
  • telephone numbers

 

I’ve even heard about some guy who used it to memorize a hefty dictionary (about 30k entries). Let’s shed some light on it then, shall we?

 

The Journey Method

The basic principle of the journey method is to imagine a journey and place items you want to remember along the way.
Choose a route which you are very familiar with and which has a certain number of distinctive objects.

I want to stress this part – the objects (or places) should be really distinctive.
Otherwise, you won’t remember your associations.

Then imagine the things you want to remember at each of those locations, associating one item at each location. Use the rules for creating images (part 2 of the course) so that the images are easy to remember.

Choose 20-30 distinctive places for starters and as you mentally travel along the route, recall the information you’ve stored there. Another piece of advice is not to make the route too long as it may become too difficult to remember all the distinctive objects along the way.

If you want to memorize, say, over 100 words, you can use 2-3 routes.
It’s usually a better choice than 1 really long route.

The journey method is also called the method of loci.
I tend to differentiate these two as the method of loci (for me) takes place inside, whereas the journey method happens outside.

It’s actually a great idea to mix these two.
You can start a journey at your flat and then take it outside.

It’s like a mental stroll. But one of the greatest things about this method is that you can review all the pieces of information which you stored whenever you want. In the line, at the post office, etc.

It definitely helps to make better use of our time.

 

Task For You

Here is a list of 31 objects. Memorize them using the journey method.

Nightingale, television, scissors, love, action, printer, notebook, helmet, worker, tie, attraction, event, management, emotion, fuel, binder, cucumber, minister, moving, contract, row, resentment, practice, autumn, brawl, toast, coach, crumbs, scar, ant, tank.

 

As always have fun and talk to you tomorrow in the last part of the course!

Bartosz Czekala