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Memory: techniques you practise

Memory techniques you practise, not just read about: holding a string of digits, chunking it into groups, walking a memory palace, and turning numbers into words and pictures with the major system and peg words. Each technique starts with a short lesson, then you use it on new numbers and lists.

Play Memory

The levels

Hold and chunk

Memory palace

Numbers as words

The lessons

Before its first questions, each of these levels shows a short lesson: an example to try, the method, and why it works.

1.1 Hold 4–5 digits

A few digits appear for a moment, then hide. While they're showing, say them to yourself in a steady rhythm, then type them back.

Why it works: Short-term memory holds only a handful of things for a few seconds. Saying them in your head keeps them fresh until you need them.

1.2 Hold 6–7 digits

More digits now. Keep the rhythm and repeat them under your breath until you type.

Why it works: Repeating (rehearsing) is what keeps things in short-term memory longer than a few seconds.

1.3 Chunks of three

Read the digits as three-digit numbers: 471 925 386 is three things to remember, not nine.

Why it works: Chunking: short-term memory holds only about four chunks, but a chunk can be big. A three-digit number counts as one.

1.4 Longer chunks

Same idea, more groups. Give a group a meaning when you can: 365 is the days in a year, 360 the degrees in a circle, 112 India's emergency number.

Why it works: Linking groups to things you already know makes them stick. It's how memory champions hold long numbers.

2.1 Five rooms

Picture a walk through a home: the front door, the kitchen, the sofa, the bed, the bathtub. Put each thing at its stop and make the picture silly or huge: a dog licking the front door, a cake on fire in the kitchen. To remember, walk the same route again.

Why it works: The method of loci, used since ancient Greece and by today's memory champions. We remember places and pictures far better than lists.

2.2 A longer walk

Ten stops: front door, hallway, kitchen, fridge, dining table, sofa, stairs, bed, wardrobe, bathtub. Always walk them in that order.

Why it works: A fixed route turns a list into a journey you can replay, so you can also say where something was.

3.1 Digits as sounds

Each digit is a consonant sound: 0 s/z, 1 t/d, 2 n, 3 m, 4 r, 5 l, 6 j/sh/ch, 7 k/hard g, 8 f/v, 9 p/b. Vowels and w, h, y are free fillers.

Why it works: Turning digits into sounds lets you turn numbers into words, and words into pictures, which are much easier to remember.

3.2 Peg words

Each number from 00 to 99 has a peg word built from its sounds: 32 is m and n, "moon"; 16 is d and sh, "dish". Learn the pegs and any two digits become a picture.

Why it works: Once the pegs are learned, numbers like codes and dates become a short story of pictures.

3.3 Numbers as pictures

Long numbers come in pairs, each with its peg word. Link the pictures into a tiny story (a moon falls into a dish), then turn the story back into digits.

Why it works: Memory athletes hold long numbers this way: digits become pictures, and pictures make a story. It works for numbers you practise it on; it isn't a general memory boost.

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