The Loci method is one of the most ancient memorization tools known, and is based on attaching individual items you need to remember, to individual points on a route you are familiar with, so you can easily recall the items as you "walk" that route in your mind. It's a particularly good method to use if you have to learn a long list of items in their proper order, since you will remember them in the same order every time. The word "Loci" is the Latin plural of the word "locus," which means location.

The Loci method is sometimes called the Roman Room, but that name is misleading, because you don't have to use a room. You can use any location that has several points in it. You could use your room, the route you take to work, the rooms of your house, your college campus -- any place where you follow the same path every time you mentally walk the route in your mind. The important thing is that the path you choose never varies in your mind and that you always use the same landmarks, whether they are pieces of furniture in your room, or the various buildings you pass while driving to work. The crucial element is that the route provides Order.

If you are memorizing a list of seven famous writers and you need to remember them in the order they were published, the Loci method is ideal. Let's say you're going to use your apartment as your Loci. Mentally picturing your apartment, you will "peg" each of the seven authors to a room or spot in or near your apartment, creating a mental image to reinforce the association. Let's take a look at our list of seven authors (in their proper order!) and then use the Loci system to memorize them:

Let's imagine you're going to use the Loci method and the path through your apartment to memorize the list. First, create your path. Imagine coming up the front steps of your apartment and entering your apartment. Hey, you already have two locations - the steps and the entry way! Then you walk into your living room, through to the dining room, and into your kitchen – three more locations. From the kitchen, you go down the hall to the office and bathroom, before ending up in the bedroom – three more locations. You even have a location to spare!

Now, let's assign each author to a location and build an association around it that is unmistakable and easy to remember:

• On the stairs is Geoffrey Chaucer, whose name sounds like saucer. So picture Chaucer sitting on the stairs holding a saucer or, better yet, landing a flying saucer carefully on the top step. (Remember, the sillier an image is, the easier it will be for you to remember it!)
• In the entryway is William Shakespeare. This one is easy – picture him shaking a spear at you, trying to prevent you from getting into your own home.
• Now you go into your living room, where you see a big hawthorn bush blooming, which reminds you that the next author on your list is Nathanial Hawthorne.
• To link the dining room to author Pearl S. Buck, you could picture a buck deer standing in the room with a pearl necklace draped around his antlers. (There's something you don't see every day!)
• The office is where you place author Arthur Miller. You could picture a giant miller (another word for a moth) fluttering around your office, or you could picture a miller grinding corn at your desk.
• In the bathroom, you need to link Stephen King. Hmm…this one is appropriate. Just picture King Stephen on his "throne" in your bathroom!

You'll quickly be able to recall all of the authors in the correct order after just a few mental walks through your home. The amazing thing about the Loci method is that you can use the same Loci for any number of lists, and it can actually be even easier with objects, than it is with names of people. For instance, use the same Loci to memorize a grocery list:

• On the stairs is a giant head of lettuce.
• In the entryway you notice a big sack of flour propped against the wall.
• In the living room there is a jug of milk left out on the coffee table.

You get the idea! It can be very straightforward for some items – like a shopping list – or you can create elaborate substitute images, if you are memorizing something more complex, like people's names, the names of countries, or other items that are difficult to picture (like we did with our authors earlier).

For the Loci method to work, the route you choose has to follow a few very important rules:

• • The route must be very familiar to you.
  • Each location within the route must be distinct from the others, so that you don't confuse them with each other.
  • You must be able to always follow the route in the same order, in all circumstances.
  • When you are using a substitute image, the more creative it is, the easier it will be to remember.

The route must be very familiar to you. That's pretty simple. If you choose a route that you aren't familiar with, you can easily become confused, so don't choose a route you only walk a few times a year. Instead, choose a route like the path you walk through your house every morning getting ready for work, or the way you drive to your girlfriend's house every day.

Each location within the route must be distinct from the others, so that you don't confuse them with each other. In other words, if you choose to use the path in your house, be careful if you decide that two of the points along your route will be the top of the stairs and the bottom of the stairs. Will this be confusing later? Should you just make the stairs one stop along your route to avoid confusion? The simplest route is generally the best, so stick with choosing points that won't be confusing. If you discover that your route doesn't have enough landmarks or stopping points in it, you are probably better off choosing a different route altogether than to try and squeeze more spots out of a short route.

Actually, you'll be amazed, once you start using the Loci method, at how easy it is to find landmarks for even very long lists. Remember how many landmarks we found in even a small apartment when memorizing those authors?

You must be able to always follow the route in the same order in all circumstances. Don't make things confusing by using a Loci route forward one time and backward another time. You can use a Loci route over and over to memorize different things, but always start from the same point, and move in the same direction, to avoid confusion and make memorizing things in the proper order easier.

When you are using a substitute image, the more creative it is, the easier it will be to remember. The mental pictures we created to remind us of our authors were vivid – a deer with pearls wrapped around his antlers, an angry author shaking a spear at us, a giant miller flying around the room, and a king sitting on the toilet -- all of these images worked because they were a bit ridiculous, which made them easier to remember.

The location you choose doesn't have to be your house. It could be any route or location that has several points in it that you can clearly visualize. Keep in mind the rules we mentioned, and try to picture a variety of routes that might work for you. Some popular Loci routes could be:

• The various businesses and landmarks on your way to work
• The houses along your street
• All of the floors in the building where you work
• The cities you drive through on vacation
• Walking through your bedroom (Instead of rooms as locations, you can think of points -- such as the closet, your bed, the dresser, the window, etc. -- as your locations.)

Or you can use something else entirely. If you want to use something else entirely, you can make a Loci list that isn't actually based on locations. The key is to make the list personalized, and make sure it is constant; you don't ever want the list to change its order.