Day 1: Method of Loci

Today we start by learning a powerful technique that has helped memory champions memorize all 52 cards in a deck in rapid time or memorize 70,000 digits of the mathematical value of Pi! Using these techniques taught in this course you be able to pick up any skill and reach your goals in life.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet

Summary

Where Will We Start

This course is about giving you the tools for learning so you can take control of your life, take control of your learning and actually apply what you learn, solving problems in real life.

But before we get started, let's do something that will show you just how powerful learning is by learning fun technique that you can immediately apply today and improve your memory drastically.

It's called the Method of Loci.

• We will use this to memorize a shuffled deck of cards.
• This technique has been used by memory champions to memorize all 52 cards in a deck of cards in rapid time, which was shown in Moonwalking with Einstein.

Why it Works

The Method of Loci is actually called by another name as well, which is a memory palace.

• A memory palace is a location that you know very well. So for example, it could be your childhood bedroom, your favorite grocery store or your grandma's house.
• It's a physical location that you can imagine in your brain and know lots of details about the space.

Humans are really good at spatial memory and remembering locations because that's how we navigated our environment as hunters and gatherers.

But we're really bad at remembering weird types of data that we don't really use that often in our day-to-day life, such as phone numbers or a deck of playing cards.

Humans are also really good at connecting the dots and solving problems, especially when it's presented in a story.

How to Use the Method of Loci

Practice the Method of Loci card memorization trick using this deck of cards website.

• Flip over 10 cards from the deck
• Pick a memorable location for your memory palace
• Make an outlandish image or story for each card
• Place that image in a location in your memory palace, following the perimeter of the room so you can remember the cards in order.

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Activity

Create your own memory palace and try and memorize 10 cars in order. If you want to get really extreme, try and do all 52 cards.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.