Answer: Method of Loci

While it might be easy to write off the amazing feats of memory pulled off by memory contest champions as due entirely to superior genetics, extraordinary intellect, or brains that are just downright different than the rest of us normal memory folks, most memory contest champions will deny that they are exceptionally bright. The secret of their success is a clever (and ancient) mind hack knowing as “Method of Loci.”

Method of Loci is a mnemonic technique that dates all the way back to ancient Roman and Greek scholars. The premise of the technique is that the human brain’s excellent spatial skills can be hijacked to help remember complex things. Rather than try to remember lists of things, dates, and so on by brute force, a person practicing the method would use a mental map of a location they either know well or have created in their mind. They would then associate the information they needed to remember with the structure of this space in their mind such that retrieving the information was like visiting a certain location in a building or a building in a town square.

The technique is also called the Roman Room technique or the Journey Method, both names alluding to the reliance on spatial relationships to solidify, store, and retrieve memories.