[mrock]

> do you have one palace per book?

Yes. Some people chain together small locations that in aggregate serve as a large palace

> Many bullet points per location?

At first I used the "roman room method" which put 10 items per room. Later, I store "memories within the memories" which is like zooming into a single item that itself serves as a mini-palace. For example, maybe Mr Rogers is in a room. I can zoom into him and he could have something on his head, in his mouth, on each hand, etc and he could store an additional 10 ideas.

> Very big memory palaces?

They are places I've been like houses with 5-10 rooms. I tried using the British Museum because it has google street view.

The key to memory is link ideas to what you already know well.

>do you memorise as you read, or do you take notes and learn those?

I've tried both. If it's a "concept book" then I read it once, take short short notes of only 3-5 bullet points per chapter, then memorize those at the end.

With "course/class/do-it" books where you're learning by doing and spending a long time with the book, I paper clip a folded sheet of paper in the book and do it on the fly.

> any guides that you found particularly useful?

I'll share some below. One point to share is that this is a skill (like bike riding). So studying the method (at first) is almost useless. Just try it, learn by doing. Answer your own questions by doing the experiments yourself. Start with memorizing something you actually care about. You will totally suck at first, and rapidly improve. :)

Links:

https://mullenmemory.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/punknellis14

[coremoff]

many thanks, that's really useful - I've been wanting/trying to sort out my memory for a while (I did use PAO for a while before it fell out of use, and I've used a small palace for trivial things like shopping lists), and this will really help, particularly:

> Later, I store "memories within the memories"

This is such a good idea - I had been thinking about many many different points in a single palace, which is a lot of work; this would make everything much more manageable.

thanks again

[coremoff]

one more question, if you'll indulge me: do you keep a number of empty palaces ready for when you'll next need one, or do you create them on demand?

[mrock]

I used to try to do that. Now I keep a list of potential palaces and do everything just-in-time.

Preparing a memory palace is just yet another skill. At first it seems like a big "job" to do. Later, it's like nothing, you float through it once, done. Especially if you reuse systems like Roman room because that makes a lot of decisions by rules.

Also because you're trying to link knowledge to what you know well you don't need to have amazing recall of the place. Just a sense of a room that you know about, eventually will be enough. If you can recall furniture or whatever, then use that it will help. But if you're straining to recall... you might not get much additional benefit by trying to photographically document the space in your mind.

[coremoff]

thanks again.

> photographically document

I have aphantasia, so it's a little more abstract for me, but I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to them :)

[aix1]

> I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to them

Thanks for sharing. I'm really curious about what that experience is like for someone who has hard time visualising things.

Especially: if not visually, how do you maintain that link between an "abstract" place and a thing that you "pin" to it in your mind.