Entire poems; lists of hundreds of random words… even the first 100 digits of Pi; Joshua Foer has got it all neatly stored away in something he calls his Memory Palace.
Now the journalist and former US Memory Champion is sharing his secrets in an effort to help average folk like you and me to retain vast amounts of information instead of always relying on Google or calling stuff ‘the thingamajig’ or ‘the whatyamacallit’.
Always forgetting names, birthday and important meetings? Read on.
Joshua’s favourite technique is called the Major System, a code that converts any number into a word, then into an image to be stored away in your very own memory palace.
To access the information whenever you like, all you need to do is take a mental walk around in there and visualise all the contents.
While Joshua uses the Major System to remember a selection of numbers, this is also a technique that can be useful for children.
Be warned, this video is not for the faint hearted, but if you master the technique, this is a skill that could pay off big time at the parish table quiz.