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Make it part of your week · Lesson 9 of 11

Memory Tricks: The Memory Route and Remembering Names

Learn how a memory route helps you remember lists, how to make names stick, and why recalling later is what keeps them.

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THE WRITTEN LESSONFollow along at your pace

In this lesson you learn a few memory tricks, and when they are worth using. They help most with things you need exactly, like a list, the steps of a routine or a new person’s name. For ideas you need to understand, other habits from this course work better.

Why lists slip

A plain list gives your memory nothing to hold. Nothing about “bread, bananas, shoes” leads from one item to the next, so one item drops out and the rest follow. Memory tricks fix that. They turn each item into an odd picture, and hang it on something you already know well.

An example shopping list: Bread, then Bananas, Shoes, Milk and Keys fading away. An arrow leads to two cards: a smiling loaf of bread labelled An odd picture, plus the same loaf at a front door labelled A place you know.(opens the full-size picture)
An odd picture plus a place you know gives each item something to hold on to.

The memory route

The best-known trick is a memory route. Picture a walk you know well, from your front door to your kitchen. Leave one strange image at each stop, like a loaf of bread on the doormat or a banana hanging from the hall light. The stranger the image, the better. To remember, walk the route in your mind and look at each stop.

An example floor plan with three rooms: Front door, Hall and Kitchen. A dashed path visits numbered stops: a smiling loaf of bread at the door, a banana hanging from the hall light, a shoe on a pile of boxes, and a person with a mug in the kitchen. Labels say Memory route and One image per stop.(opens the full-size picture)
Walk the route in your mind, and each stop shows you the next item.

What the research says

Does it work? A large review found that a memory route beat simple repetition for lists in order, when people were tested soon after. But the evidence is weak, and nobody knows yet how much it helps. Many of the studies were short lab tests with word lists, so treat the route as a useful tool, not a guarantee.

Under Does it work?, with the tags Lists in order and Tested soon after, a tall bar for Route beats a shorter bar for Repeating. Beside it, a dial titled How sure are we? points to Low, with the note How much it helps: not known yet.(opens the full-size picture)
The route came out ahead, but how much it helps is not known yet.

Start small

Start small, with about two items per stop. Give each list its own route, because reusing a route for a new list can blur the old one. For example, use your home for the shopping and the walk to work for the points of a talk. It feels slow at first, and gets faster with practice.

Three cards. 1: a stop holding a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk, labelled About two per stop. 2: two houses, each with its own dotted route for List 1 and List 2, labelled One list, one route. 3: a clock and rising bars, labelled Slow at first, with Faster with practice below.(opens the full-size picture)
Two items per stop, one route per list, and patience at the start.

Names

Names are hard, because a name tells you nothing about the person. It is easier to remember that someone is a baker than that they are called Baker. So add a meaning when one comes easily. Rosa can hold a rose. A new colleague called Sam can stand next to a Sam you already know.

Two example drawings of the same face: one in a chef's hat labelled a baker with a check mark, one labelled Mr. Baker, faded out. On the right, an example woman labelled Rosa holds a rose, with a pill that says Add a meaning.(opens the full-size picture)
A job carries meaning, a name does not. A picture can add one.

Recall is what keeps it

Here is the key part. With a new name, ask yourself the name silently a minute later, then again after a longer gap, for example when you move on and once on the way home. At a real party, that worked better than a picture trick. The same goes for your memory route: walk it again the next day, before you look at the list.

Three stages: Take it in, Keep it, Get it back, with Trick: gets it in under the first and Recall: keeps it under the third. Below, At a real party, Recall it is marked Ahead of Picture trick. On the right, an example person named Leo, with a timeline from Meet to 1 minute to Later and a thought bubble with a check mark at each recall.(opens the full-size picture)
Recall the name a minute later, then again after a longer gap.

When to use memory tricks

Use these tricks for lists, steps in order, names and stubborn foreign words. For ideas you need to understand, testing yourself and spacing your reviews work better. Earlier in this course you learned both: how to test yourself and how to space your reviews.

Under Memory tricks, four checked cards: Lists, Steps in order, Names and Foreign words. Below, a card for Ideas to understand points to two pills, Test yourself and Space your reviews, with the words work better.(opens the full-size picture)
Tricks for exact items, testing and spacing for ideas.

YOUR TURN

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Read the full lesson script

In this lesson, you will learn a few memory tricks, and when they are worth using. They help most with things you need exactly, like lists and names.

A plain list gives your memory nothing to hold. Memory tricks fix that. They turn each item into an odd picture, and hang it on something you already know well.

The best-known trick is a memory route. Picture a walk you know well, from your front door to your kitchen. Leave one strange image at each stop, like a loaf of bread on the doormat. To remember, walk the route in your mind and look.

Does it work? A large review found that a memory route beat simple repetition for lists in order, when people were tested soon after. But the evidence is weak, and nobody knows yet how much it helps.

Start small, with about two items per stop. Give each list its own route. It feels slow at first, and gets faster with practice.

Names are hard, because a name tells you nothing about the person. It is easier to remember that someone is a baker than that they are called Baker. So add a meaning when one comes easily. Rosa can hold a rose.

Here is the key part. A trick gets the item in. Recalling it later is what keeps it there. With a new name, ask yourself the name silently a minute later, then again after a longer gap. At a real party, that worked better than a picture trick.

Use these tricks for lists, steps in order, names and stubborn foreign words. For ideas you need to understand, testing yourself and spacing your reviews work better.

So, turn each item into an odd picture, hang it on a place you know, and then recall it later. Today, memorize a five-item list with a route through your home, and recall it tomorrow. Next, you will learn how to keep your focus while you learn.