Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Why Does The Memory Palace Technique Work?
Chapter 2: What is a Memory Palace?
Chapter 3: Building Your Own Memory Palace
Chapter 4: Using Your Memory Palace
Chapter 5 – Trouble Shooting and Tricks
Chapter 6: Some Fun Facts That You Can Memorize And Wow Your Friends With
Chapter 7: Some Additional Exercises For When You Are More Advanced
Chapter 8: More On Mnemonics
Conclusion
Introduction
 
Whether you are a student cramming for exams or a businessman/ woman trying to remember vital statistics or just
someone who wishes that their memories were better, I have no doubt that, at some stage or another, you have tried
some form of memory trick.
I know, I was in that exact same spot – about 5 years ago. I used to complain that I had a memory like a sieve and had
decided that there was little to nothing that I could actually do about it. That was until one day a friend remarked to me
that I actually had a great memory when it came to remembering the names of people’s pets, sometimes being able to
remember them years later. When it came to the names of the owners, however, I generally drew a blank.
Having this pointed out to me made me decide to look into the matter further and I found out something truly interesting
– your brain can memorize a whole lot of information, so memorizing is not the issue at all. The problem occurs when you
want to access those memories at a later stage and, unless something is really important to you (like the dogs were to
me), without a system that makes these memories easy to recall, you will always battle to recall them.
What it all boils down to is making it easier for your brain to actually recall things.
In this book, I will teach you a technique called “The Memory Palace”
I find that this technique is one of the best ways to deal with memorizing things and it is a lot of fun. If you, like me, hate
repeating things over and over again, or would rather not turn to song to remember this is a viable alternative. You also
get to do away with all those lists that you tend to leave at home when shopping anyway.
In fact, you do not even need to write anything down at all! That’s right, not a single word.
Sound too good to be true? Well, I guess that it does but that does not mean that it is a bad idea, only that it is a radically
different one. Set aside your disbelief for a second – you will be amazed at how well this system works.
The reason that it works so well is that it provides a solid structure for the brain to focus on – you get to tell the brain
where the information needs to be stored and it acts accordingly.
Have you always envied someone for their “perfect” memory – well, adopt this technique and feel what it feels like to be
envied for your own perfect memory.
 
 
Chapter 1: Why Does The Memory Palace Technique Work?
 
Contrary to popular belief, this is not a new technique at all – even ancient Romans would practices it. It is the preferred
technique used by the top champions in the memory fields – this technique is what made it possible for Dominic O’Brien
to memorize a sequence of 2808 cards after having viewed each card once only.
Hollywood has also picked up on this with TV’s, The Mentalist, Patrick Jayne, being absolutely unstoppable using this
technique.
Okay, now let’s deal with the fallout from those to statements – yes, The Mentalist is a fictional series (a very good one
but fictional) and Dominic O’Brien has dedicated years of his life to honing his memory skills. Neither one is your typical
example or even anything like you, right?
To an extent, that is true but the simple fact is that anyone can have these amazing powers of recall simply through
learning the memory palace technique. You really are only limited by your own preconceived notions about what can and
cannot be done.
Think about this for a few seconds – in the first 5 years of life, we all had to learn to walk, talk, interact with one another,
play, etc. We were virtual sponges and could absorb huge amounts of information. And every single one of us was once a
child with the ability to absorb huge quantities of information over a very short period.
So, what went wrong? Do we get more stupid as we get older? That surely does not make any sense – I know that I, for
one, am smarter than a 5 year old. The truth is that we do not ever lose the capacity to absorb these huge amounts of
information. What does happen is that we no longer have to and, as a result, get a little lazy or fall out of practice. Even
though we do get out of the habit of using this skill, we do take in vast amounts of information every day without really
noticing it. It is just that when we are under a bit of pressure to recall the information, we basically cannot find it in
amongst all the other stuff floating around in our brains. And that is wonderful news – it means that we have the
capacity, if we take a little time to learn how to use it again.
Let’s go back to me, for example, I was going on a trip to Dubai and decided that I wanted to learn to speak Arabic as a
result. I failed miserably – learning a couple of phrases like “Thank you” and “Greetings. No matter how often I repeated
the phrases, the information would only stick in my brain for a few minutes at most. Eventually I gave it up as a lost cause.
Then I found out more about the memory palace technique and started to learn how to use it. I decided that I would try
to learn another language using this technique and I found that learning this time around became a lot easier. I have since
started learning to speak Mandarin. (Slowly of course, it is a difficult language to learn.) For someone who just a few years
ago couldn’t even remember what she’d eaten for breakfast a few days prior, this was a major achievement.
My point in relating this is that if I can do it, I know that you can as well. I have a very active mind and one that can be
easily distracted – part of the reason that I used to have so much trouble remembering things. With the memory palace
technique, I have an anchor in my mind for important things that I need to remember and a way to access them as and
when necessary.
I have also taught everyone I know how the technique works and the results have be pretty great. My best friend’s
daughters are both in high school and cannot believe how easy it is to recall things using this technique – they saw a
marked increase in their grades, simply because they were not having to go through things over and over again.
And it is not only in subjects like history that the girls are excelling – math and science also require the memorization of a
lot of different principles and equations and the memory palace is excellent for these also.
Why It Works
The memory palace technique works because it is based on using our spatial memory – as people, we are very good at
remembering places that we know. Building a familiar structure lays the groundwork to store the information in makes it
a lot easier to recall that information later on.
You can use the inside of your home, the route that you drive to work on a daily basis - as long as it is familiar to you, this
technique will work.
Your brain is physically created to help you interact with the external world – to help you to retain information vital to
survival. How many shopping lists or exam cramming sessions did your average caveman need, for example?
Take advantage of this need for spatial stimulation and you will do very well when it comes to remembering what you
need to because now you have a way to actually feed it into your mind in a way that makes sense to it.
You can choose to group certain types of memories together and assign a place for them in your mental palace in place of
the standard jumble of information that is just crammed in without regard for having to recall it later. You will look at the
memories that you want to access and also at memories that may be related.
 
Chapter 2: What is a Memory Palace?
 
A memory palace is a place that you go to in your mind, a place that you can visualize walking through, with several little
nooks and crannies where information can be stored. The idea is that you will be able to recall the information that you
need simply by visualizing the right section in your memory palace. For some people, this can be a single room, for others,
their whole town.
Don’t get too caught up in the imagery itself – there are no right and wrong answers here. The only real rule is that it
should be somewhere that you know very well.
You can choose to use your home as a reference point or a series of different locations. Perhaps, if you catch the bus to
work, you could store information to coincide with each of the stops along the way. The key is to find a location that you
know really well and that you can visualize in your mind. As long as you are able to do this, you already have everything
that you need to have a memory mogul.
And therein lies the beauty of this system – no more needing to come up with clever little sayings or songs to help
remember things, no more repeating facts until you are bored to tears and no more forgetting half of what was on your
grocery list because you forgot to take it shopping with you.
When you have added the information that you want to remember all you will need to do to recall it is to visualize going
into the relevant area of the memory palace and pulling it out again.
I just want to stress one more time that the memory palace is not necessarily a building – use whatever suits you. It is
important that there are several different rooms/ stops, etc. along the way because you need to categorize the
information and place it in the right spot for recall later. Let us say, for example, that you choose to use a single room –
maybe your bedroom – think about it for a minute, there are still a number of places to store stuff in in your bedroom
aren’t there?
Look at storing information in your cupboards and vanity but also consider less likely places like on top of the pallet,
behind the curtains, under the lampshade, etc. If you look at it this way, there are a whole lot of places that you can store
information and so you can store a whole lot of information as well.
Your brain loves this technique – by pairing the memories with spatial memories, you are telling your brain that this
information is just as important as knowing the way around your home or how to get to work is.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 3: Building Your Own Memory Palace
 
Start out by using your bedroom or a single room in your house to start off with – this is a place that you know well and it
can be a convenient place to start practicing this technique in a smaller space. Once you have gotten the hang of it, you
can make the palace bigger – by incorporating your whole house, or any other place that you are extremely familiar with.
You could, if you like, choose a place that you have imagined but I only advise doing this if the imagery is very vivid in your
mind. This technique tends to work best when you work with a place that you have been to and experienced so that you
can remember the various sensory aspects of the experience.
The more detail that you can add to your memory palace and the more information about the place that you can add, the
more information you will be able to store there as well.
Start By Imagining The Place
Now, close your eyes and, in your mind’s eye, imagine the memory palace that you have decided on. What details can you
see? What different subsections are there? If you run into blocks, open your eyes and look around and refresh your
memory as to what really is there. Remember as much detail as possible – sights, sounds and smells can all help to make
the memory truly vivid in your mind. Even consider the feelings associated with the place in order to make it all the more
real in your mind.
Pick Your Route
If you need to remember things in a particular order, you are going to set up an actual roadmap in your memory palace in
whatever way makes sense to you. You will need to select the correct route for what it is that you want to remember.
Then, as you move along the route, things become easy to remember in perfect order.
Even if you do not want to remember anything in a specific order, it is still a good idea to set up a route for travelling
through your memory palace. That way, it does actually become a lot easier when you need to recall something.
Basically when it comes to recalling things, you will usually walk along this route until you come to the section in the
palace that stores the information that you need. If you are in a hurry, you are more than welcome to skip directly to the
section that you need.
Where You Will Store Things
You now need to figure out where things are going to be stored in the memory palace. You could, for example, decide to
put things pertaining the kitchen in the kitchen of your memory palace. Find logical connections for different types of
information throughout your memory palace.
It is also important to ensure that no one place is so like another that they can be mistaken for it. You can make this step
as simple or complex as you like. Maybe you just want to remember a small list of information, then make each room in
your home a distinct location. You can always add in more information by looking at everything within each room as you
go along.
Think of it as something like the filing system that you use on your computer – you will have the main folder (your whole
memory palace); sub-folders (where the information to be stored is divided amongst rough categories and folders within
these (places where the more specific information will go.) As with your computer, the smaller the file of information, the
less the likelihood that you need a variety of folders and sub-folders.
Ready, Set
We are not quite ready to go just yet. You now need to make a drawing of your memory palace and the route that you
will take along the way. Mark out all the places that you have chosen as locations to hide stuff in and walk the route that
you have chosen a couple of times – taking in as much detail as you are able to. Then commit the entire plan to memory.
Now visualize actually going along the route, taking care to fill in as many details as you are able to in order to make this a
real picture in your mind. Check how you have done against the original drawing that you did and, in need, practice going
through it in your mind over and over again to ensure that you know each and every single stopping point, etc.
Practice when you are away from the physical location as well, without relying on your notes at all.
Once you have managed to correctly visualize the whole memory palace in your mind, you are ready to move on to
actually starting to memorize things.
 
 
Chapter 4: Using Your Memory Palace
 
Okay, now you can get down to business. At this stage, the palace should be well-rehearsed in your mind and you should
be easily able to visualize it. Now it is time to start assigning the different information to different areas in the palace.
Working in a logical manner here will be of great benefit to you. Let us say, for example, that you have to memorize a
speech, it makes sense that you want to put it in the right order and in manageable segments. Break it up into basic
phrases and visually put them in place as you move along your memory palace route. Do not be scared to spread out all
the way along the route and do ensure that you have memorable chunks of the speech spread out in the right order.
If you do not need to remember things in any particular order, you can place the items anywhere in the memory palace.
Again, I suggest finding some logical reason when it comes to placing the items concerned. For example, let us say that
you needed to remember a grocery list with the following on it:
Tile cleaner; oranges, toilet paper, deodorant.
A good way of remembering this list would be to store the tile cleaner in the bathroom, the oranges in the kitchen, the
toilet paper in the toilet and the deodorant in the bedroom.
When you are starting out, it does make sense to group like objects together as having to go through different rooms to
find what is stored there could be confusing. What I mean here is that if you are getting cleaning supplies, for example, it
is better to group them all in one place, rather than putting them into the individual rooms.
As you progress, this will become less and less of an issue and you will find that you are able to put the items anywhere
that you like.
On Symbolism
The mind is just as adept at remembering symbols as it is at remembering words and numbers. Whenever possible, cut
back on the number of words used so that you have a better chance of remembering everything that you need to.
Storing the items in a logical place within the memory palace is one thing, finding a symbol that can help you to recall
them is going to take your recall up a few notches.
For example, we all know that the Texas is the Lone Star state. Perhaps instead of putting Texas in your memory palace,
you can visualize a star, all on its own. By the same token, Wisconsin is associated with cheese and California with surfing.
It is a lot easier to remember shorter snippets of information and you can often effectively shorten the amount of
information by using a symbol in place of the actual words. The brain also tends to be a lot more visually motivated and
so images might be easier to remember than actual words.
You Have Permission To Day Dream
When I was at school – a long, long time ago – one criticism that came up over and over again was that I was prone to day
dreaming. Now looking back I understand that this was not a bad thing at all but many of us were raised to believe that it
was. From today, you are allowed to day dream, especially when it comes to things that you need to remember.
What you need to remember is that the brain is easily bored and is constantly looking for more effective ways to do
things. Remember the last time that you printed out your New Year’s Resolutions and stuck them next to the bathroom
mirror? If you are like most people, you were reminded of your goals every time you saw the poster for the next week or
so. When your brain got bored with the image, it stopped consciously noting it so even though you may have been staring
straight at the image, it did not make much of an impact on your mind.
It works in much the same way when you are trying to learn things by rote. You repeat the same phrase over and over
again in your mind until your mind becomes bored stiff. Whilst you may retain the knowledge over the short-term, this is
not a long-term solution – check in a week or two how much of the information you have retained through this method.
Creativity Is Key
If you want to outfox your brain, you need to get more creative when it comes to memorizing things. You need to also
visualize the items on the list in as creative a way as possible – for example, let us say that you need to remember that
the address is 124 Church Lane, you could start by placing the 124 in its own room in your memory palace. You could then
imagine a spear that looks like the number 1 and imagine it piercing the neck of a swan – to represent the number 2 and
then imagine the swan breaking up into 4 pieces.
You can also use mnemonics to make it easier to remember information that is going into your memory palace. This
involves using the first letter for each word and changing it into a sentence that you will more easily be able to remember.
For example, if you need to remember the order of the planets in our solar system, you might say, “My very energetic
monkey jumps swiftly under Neptune.” (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.) Again here, the
more absurd the sentence is, the easier it will be to remember.
Now that you have filled up the rooms of your palace with various images, symbols, etc. you need to walk through this in
your mind and ensure that you recall everything in it. As you look into every room, be sure to note where everything is. As
you use this technique more and more often, you will find that your mind automatically associates the information that
you added in in a natural manner. You will just need to walk up to the bedroom door in your memory palace to be
reminded of what is in there.
Practice walking through the palace a few times and recalling the information. Do be sure to follow the route that you
decided to lay out and do keep at it so that you further imprint the memories. Eventually, this will become second nature
and recalling will be simply a matter of finding the right place in your own memory palace. 
Over time, you can always build more memory palaces. If you are just using your palace for remembering lists in the short
term, this is simply a matter or removing the information that is no longer necessary and replacing it with the new
information.
Alternatively, choose new routes or build a completely new memory palace. You could also use different memory palaces
to help you remember different things – for example, maybe you would like to have one memory palace for business
contact numbers and one for personal contact numbers. You can have as many memory palaces as you like, as long as
you take the time to set each up properly at the outset.
Your brain is a lot more amazing than you would ever realize. Take the World Memory Championships, for example. It is
here that the highest ranked competitors successfully manage to memorize all the cards of 20 decks, shuffled up in an
hour or less. The shorter events can include the memorization of about 500 numbers chosen at random, in fifteen
minutes or less. Pretty amazing, right?
What is even more amazing is that most of us are capable of the exact same feats – the difference between us and these
competitors is not that they are a lot more intelligent or even that their memories are better. Where the difference
comes in is in the way that they learn to store information for easy recall later. They also use techniques like mnemonics
and memory palaces in order to help with total recall.
The really, really great news is that you can do the same – even if you are currently one of those people who would leave
their heads behind if it wasn’t screwed on, you can also improve your recall skills. It will just take a little time, effort and
patience on your part.
Chapter 5 – Trouble Shooting and Tricks
 
Okay, so now you know what it is that you need to do – the truth of the matter is that it is not always going to be smooth
sailing. In this chapter, we will go through some of the things that might go wrong and give you the tricks that you need to
get over these bumps in the road.
I Just Cannot See It
In this instance, the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again” is very apt. Some people are going to get this
right their first time around but there are not many of these people.
I have to admit that when I first tried the memory palace method, I couldn’t get it right – the visualization itself was
difficult for me in the beginning and I realized that I am more easily able to visualize the general look of things than the
actual details. For me, drawing the route helped a fair amount but I did have to practice quite a bit in order to actually get
the program working as it should for me.
If you are finding that it is difficult to visualize things initially, why not set up an actual tour of your memory palace – all
you will need is a camera/ phone capable of taking video. Walk through your route at least once whilst filming and then
you can do this virtual tour when the mood takes you. This can be an excellent way to help with the visualization process,
especially if you are battling with it early on.
Alternatively, slow down a bit – It might be tempting to want to use your whole town as a memory palace but the bigger
the space for the palace is, the harder it will be to visualize, at least initially. Start off with one room or, if that is too
much, even just using a corner of the room or a bookcase as a starting off point.
Other than that, you do need to practice as much as possible.
I Need To Memorize New Information
Perhaps the first palace worked so well that you have decided that you want to memorize even more. That is great and
you can easily do that by either adding the information in manageable chunks to the rooms that you have or by choosing
a different route altogether.
The route that you choose will depend on how important the old information was and how the new information pertains
to it, if it does at all.
For example, perhaps you have been studying about Ancient Egypt and memorized all the pharaohs of one particular
dynasty. Now that you have gotten further in your studies, you have decided to memorize information about their queens
and gods as well.
The names of the queens would fit quite well with the names of the pharaohs and would be a logical extension – you
could store each with the requisite pharaoh with little trouble. The names of the gods, on the other hand, are a more
generic topic and might require a room or nook of their own.
Perhaps then you need to memorize your grocery list – this has nothing to do with ancient Egypt and so it would need to
be stored in a different location again. Alternatively, you could also set yourself a whole new memory palace.
I Have A Lot Of Material To Get Through
This is a complaint that I get quite often and again I want to remind you that that little five-year old that you once were is
somewhere in there. You do have the ability to get through mountains of information. Still not convinced – think about all
the information that comes at us every single day in the form of social media, traditional media, TV, etc. We are never
really unplugged anymore and your brain handles all of that just fine. You can handle vast amounts of information and
you just need to come to this realization yourself.
If you are studying a lot of information at once, it is best to break it up into smaller packages and store it in this way. Back
to the Egypt example – you could, for example, split up the pharaohs and their queens into one section and memorize
that, then add in the gods and goddesses in a separate section. Then add in the major cities, industries, etc.
If everything is broken up into smaller bits, you will find that you are going to find it a lot easier to manage.
I Still Cannot Remember Or I Get Mixed Up
 
There are some people who have come up to me and said things like, “This is complete rubbish, it does not work.” In
most cases when this happens, it is because you have not done enough preparation when it comes to your memory
palace, or you have not defined the links between the information and the place that it is being stored properly.
Start with looking at how you have placed the information within your memory palace. Is it dotted all over the place? If
you have similar batches of information at several locations within your palace, it can be hard to remember which
batches are where and this could cause confusion.
I would say that around about 90% of memory lapses can be attributed to not paying sufficient attention and if you keep
having problems with recall whilst using this method, you need to have a look at your technique.
Have you truly visualized the memory palace and taken the time to walk through it in your mind? Have you put the
information there in manageable chunks and in a logical spot? Have you given yourself enough time to properly absorb
the information, without being distracted?
This is a great technique but there are no shortcuts here – you need to ensure that you give it your full focus if you want
to be able to recall the facts later. Now, that does mean spending a little more time initially but imagine how much time
and boredom you will save yourself in future because you do not need to repeat the facts over and over again in order to
remember them.
Chapter 6: Some Fun Facts That You Can Memorize And Wow Your Friends With
 
In this chapter I am going to give you some lists of information that you can memorize as a practice run. The lists range
from long to short and so should give you some great practice. Memorizing the longer lists is also a cool party trick –
challenge your friends to see if they can beat you.
Start with the easier exercises and progress to the more difficult ones as you improve.
Easy
The Seven Deadly Sins
Lust 
Sloth 
Gluttony 
Greed 
Wrath 
Envy 
Pride
The Seven Virtues
Chastity
Charity
Diligence
Patience
Kindness
Humility
Temperance
The Ten Longest Rivers
Nile
Amazon
Mississippi-Missouri-Red Rock
Yangtze
Ob
Yellow
Yenisei
Parana
Irtish
Zaire
The Seven Wonders Of The World
Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Tallest Mountains in the World
Everest
K2
Kangchenjunga
Lhotse
Makalu
Cho Oyu
Dhaulagiri
Manaslu
Nanga Parbat
Annapurna
The Ten Biggest Countries
Russia
Canada
United States of America
China
Brazil
Australia
India
Argentina
Kazakhstan
Sudan
Countries With The Highest Population Rates
China
India
United States
Indonesia
Brazil
Pakistan
Nigeria
Russia
Bangladesh
Japan
Intermediate
The Ten Commandments
There shall be no other gods but me
You shall not worship false idols
Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
The Sabbath is to remain holy.
Honor your father and your mother
You shall not kill
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
You shall not steal
Be not envious
More Difficult
American Presidents
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama
Challenging
Best Picture Oscar Winning Movies from 1928 - 2014
1927-28 - Wings
1928-29 - Broadway Melody
1929-30 - All Quiet on the Western Front
1930-31 - Cimarron
1931-32 - Grand Hotel
1932-33 - Cavalcade
1934 - It Happened One Night
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 - The Great Ziegfeld
1937 - The Life of Emile Zola
1938 - You Can't Take It With You
1939 - Gone With the Wind
1940 - Rebecca
1941 - How Green Was My Valley
1942 - Mrs Miniver
1943 - Casablanca
1944 - Going My Way
1945 - The Lost Weekend
1946 - The Best Years of Our Lives
1947 - Gentlemen's Agreement
1948 - Hamlet
1949 - All the King's Men
1950 - All About Eve
1951 - An American In Paris
1952 - The Greatest Show on Earth
1953 - From Here to Eternity
1954 - On the Waterfront
1955 – Marty
1956 - Around the World in 80 Days
1957 - The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 - Gigi
1959 - Ben-Hur
1960 - The Apartment
1961 - West Side Story
1962 - Lawrence of Arabia
1963 - Tom Jones
1964 - My Fair Lady
1965 - The Sound of Music
1966 - A Man for All Seasons
1967 - In the Heat of the Night
1968 - Oliver
1969 - Midnight Cowboy
1970 - Patton
1971 - The French Connection
1972 - The Godfather
1973 - The Sting
1974 - The Godfather Part II
1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976 - Rocky
1977 - Annie Hall
1978 - The Deer Hunter
1979 - Kramer vs Kramer
1980 - Ordinary People
1981 - Chariots of Fire
1982 - Gandhi
1983 - Terms of Endearment
1984 - Amadeus
1985 - Out of Africa
1986 - Platoon
1987 - The Last Emperor
1988 - Rain Man
1989 - Driving Miss Daisy
1990 - Dances With Wolves
1991 - The Silence of the Lambs
1992 - Unforgiven
1993 - Schindler's List
1994 - Forrest Gump
1995 - Braveheart
1996 - The English Patient
1997 - Titanic
1998 - Shakespeare in Love
1999 - American Beauty
2000 - Gladiator
2001 - A Beautiful Mind
2002 - Chicago
2003 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 - Million Dollar Baby
2005 - Crash
2006 - The Departed
2007 - No Country for Old Men
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire
2009 - The Hurt Locker
2010 - The King's Speech
2011 - The Artist
2012 – Argo
2013 - 12 Years A Slave
2014 – Birdman
Chapter 7: Some Additional Exercises For When You Are More Advanced
 
Word Soup
Grab a dictionary and open at random – choose the first word that catches your eye and write it down. Do this for a total
of 15 times and then memorize the list in five minutes or less.
To take it up another notch, also note the meanings of the word and memorize those as well. You have 15 minutes for
this exercise.
Friendly Challenge
Get a friend or neighbor to write down 15 words that they think that you may not know. You have 5 minutes to memorize
this list. Make it harder by getting them to increase the number of words that they write down or have them write longer,
more difficult words down. Memorize them in the order that they have been written in.
Phone Book Challenge
Open the phone book to any page that you like and memorize all the numbers in the first column. Make it harder by
increasing the number of phone numbers that are memorized and decreasing the amount of time for you to do this in.
Take it up a few notches by remembering the names and phone numbers. Add the addresses in later if you like.
Card Shark
Shuffle a full deck of cards well and memorize them in order. You have half an hour for this exercise. Make it harder by
adding in a second and third deck later on.
Mobile Challenge
Quick check – how many of the phone numbers on your cell phone do you actually know? If you had to lose your phone
tomorrow, how many would you be able to recover? Now, when I was growing up (back in the dark ages before the
invention of cell phones and speed dialing) we actually had to memorize phone numbers or write them down. Back then, I
knew what the numbers of all my friends and family were. In all honesty, that is no longer the case and, if I lost my cell
phone now, I would only be able to call my mother because her number is the only one that I do know.
However, if you are looking for a challenge, why not memorize all the numbers on your cell phone?
Trivial Pursuit
If you have a Trivial Pursuit game languishing at the back of the cupboard, why not pull it out and learn some trivial facts?
You can memorize whole cards or a bunch of questions in one topic – whatever you like. At the very least, it is a great way
to become Trivial Pursuit champion at the next family reunion.
State Of The Nation
US State                            State Capital                            US State                            State Capital
Alabama                            Montgomery                            Montana                            Helena
Alaska                                          Juneau                                          Nebraska                            Lincoln
Arizona                                          Phoenix                                          Nevada                                          Carson City
Arkansas                            Little Rock                            New Hampshire                            Concord
California                            Sacramento                            New Jersey                            Trenton
Colorado                            Denver                                          New Mexico                            Santa Fe
Connecticut                            Hartford                            New York                            Albany
Delaware                            Dover                                          North Carolina                            Raleigh
Florida                                          Tallahassee                            North Dakota                            Bismarck
Georgia                                          Atlanta                                          Ohio                                          Columbus
Hawaii                                          Honolulu                            Oklahoma                            Oklahoma City
Idaho                                          Boise                                          Oregon                                          Salem
Illinois                                          Springfield                            Pennsylvania                            Harrisburg
Indiana                                          Indianapolis                            Rhode Island                            Providence
Iowa                                          Des Moines                            South Carolina                            Columbia
Kansas                                          Topeka                                          South Dakota                            Pierre
Kentucky                            Frankfort                            Tennessee                            Nashville
Louisiana                            Baton Rouge                            Texas                                          Austin
Maine                                          Augusta                            Utah                                          Salt Lake City
Maryland                            Annapolis                            Vermont                            Montpelier
Massachusetts                            Boston                                          Virginia                                          Richmond
Michigan                            Lansing                                          Washington                            Olympia
Minnesota                            St. Paul                                          West Virginia                            Charleston
Mississippi                            Jackson                                          Wisconsin                            Madison
Missouri                            Jefferson City                            Wyoming                            Cheyenne
Chapter 8: More On Mnemonics
 
Mnemonics are devices that aid in recall. If you are studying large quantities of data, combining one of these memory
techniques with the memory palace makes sense.
Word Mnemonics
We have already been through the word mnemonics – where you take the letter from each word and create new words
with these so that you can make a sentence that is easier to remember. Another example of this type of mnemonic device
is: “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally” in order to remember the order in which to deal with math functions within an
equation – Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add and Subtract.
Music Mnemonics
  
I know that earlier I did say that you didn’t have to make up any more silly songs to remember things anymore. That said,
music adds an extra dimension to recall because it is easy to recall. If you have long lists, putting them to a catchy tune
can go a long way to aiding recall. Think about the alphabet song you learned when you were young. Have you ever
forgotten it? (I know that every time I recite the alphabet in my mind, it is to the tune of the alphabet song.)
Name Mnemonics
  
This is similar to the word mnemonics except that we form a word/ name with the first letters of the words instead of
creating a sentence.
To remember the colors of the rainbow, for example, we could use Roy G Biv – Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo
and violet.
Rhyming Mnemonics
Because the words rhyme, it is a little easier for the brain to recall them. Take the rhyme to help remember how many
days are in a month:
“30 days hath September, April, June and November.
All the rest have 31 excepting February that has 28 days clear
and 29 in each leap year.”
Or the simple “I before E, except after C”.
Get Yourself A Note Book
Get yourself a note book and work out some mnemonics that make sense to you – which form of mnemonics do you
prefer to use? Work out some mnemonics to help you to make sense of things that you need to remember and keep
playing with it.
With mnemonics, the key is to finding what works for you – we are all different, perhaps you like information that is
presented in the form of a jingle, perhaps you just like the abbreviated form of name mnemonics. Make it as easy as
possible for your brain to recall the facts that you need it to.
Conclusion
 
Thank you for downloading this book.
I really hope that you have been able to understand better how the memory palace memory technique works and that
you will be able to apply it in your own life.
I also hope that this book will be a great introduction into improving your memory and that you will continue to learn
more about this fascinating topic.
All that is left to do now is to practice what you have learned in this book – the more you practice, the better the results
will be!
Last of all, I would like to ask you to take a second of your time to review this book on Amazon for me. It would be most
appreciated.
Thank you and good luck!