Which memory techniques actually work?

What is the method of loci?

The memory palace, or method of loci, means placing the things you want to remember at specific points along a route you know well, such as your own home. To recall them you walk the route mentally and collect each item. It is the technique memory competitors use, and it dates back to antiquity.

It works by borrowing something the brain already does easily. Spatial memory for familiar places is strong and durable, so the technique hangs arbitrary information on a structure you did not have to build.

Does it work?

Yes, for the specific job of memorising material. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 83 studies, with 68 in the main analyses and roughly 6,355 participants, found a small effect of d = 0.42 for immediate serial recall against ordinary rehearsal in young adults, with larger estimates in some subsets.

Ondřej published this in the British Journal of Psychology, and the honest reading requires the quality assessment alongside the number. Nearly nine in ten of the young adult studies were rated high risk of bias. There was very strong evidence of publication bias, and the overall GRADE rating for the evidence was very low.

So the technique is real and old and used by people who compete at this, and the formal literature behind it is considerably weaker than its reputation.

Does it make your memory better generally?

No, and this is the distinction that matters. Training on a mnemonic improves performance on the material you apply it to. It does not raise your underlying memory capacity, which is the same limitation that sinks brain training.

That is not a criticism of the technique. A tool that reliably helps you memorise a speech, a list of names, or an exam sequence is genuinely useful. It is a criticism of how it gets sold, which is usually as a general upgrade.

What actually works better for learning?

For remembering things over months rather than minutes, two other methods have stronger and cleaner evidence: retrieval practice, meaning testing yourself instead of rereading, and spacing your study across sessions instead of massing it.

Spacing beat cramming at d = 0.54 across classroom studies, on better evidence than the loci literature offers. Those two are also free, need no setup, and apply to anything.

The sensible division: use the memory palace when you have a specific list to hold, and use retrieval and spacing for anything you want to still know next year.

How do you use it well?

Pick a route you know so well you could walk it in the dark, and fix the order of stops before you start. The route has to be automatic, since any effort spent recalling the palace is effort taken from the contents.

Make each image concrete, strange and interactive. A vague association fades and a vivid, physically implausible one persists, which is the part that feels silly and does the work.

Reuse routes carefully. Old contents interfere with new ones on the same path, so keep separate routes for things you need at the same time.