Improve memory - Journey Method

The journey method


The journey method involves associating information with landmarks on journeys that you are very familiar with. When you get familiar with this you are able to create complex journeys that fix in your mind.

Try to prepare the journey beforehand. For instance, write down all the landmarks that you can recall in order on a piece of paper.

To remember a list of items, whether these are people, experiments, events or objects, all you need do is associate these things with the landmarks or stops on your journey.





One advantage of this technique is that you can use it to work both backwards and forwards, and start anywhere within the route to retrieve information.

You can use the technique well with other mnemonics. This can be done either by building complex coding images at the stops on a journey, or by linking to other mnemonics at each stop. You could start other journeys at each landmark.


You may, as a simple example, want to remember something mundane like this shopping list:

Coffee, salad, vegetables, bread, kitchen paper, fish, chicken breasts, pork chops, soup, fruit, bath tub cleaner.

You could associate this list with a journey to a supermarket. Mnemonic images could be:

Front door: spilt coffee grains on the doormat
Rose bush in front garden: growing lettuce leaves and tomatoes around the roses
Car: with potatoes, onions and cauliflower on the driver's seat
End of the road: an arch of French bread over the road
Past garage: with its sign wrapped in kitchen roll
Under railway bridge: from which haddock and cod are dangling by their tails
Traffic lights: chickens squawking and flapping on top of lights
Past church: in front of which a pig is doing karate, breaking boards
Under office block: with a soup slick underneath: my car tires send up jets of tomato soup as I drive through it
Past car park: with apples and oranges tumbling from the top level
Supermarket car park: a filthy bath tub is parked in the space next to my car!


It's worth noting that some time may needed to firmly remember the journey in your mind. But this is worth the investment,