Here is the thing about Memorizing: Some people are naturally really good at it and others have to work harder.
When I was younger, I was the first one. I memorized all of my music for band and passages of books for presentations.
When I got to university and was asked to memorize long strings of dates and events, my professor introduced us to the “Door/Hallway technique”. If anyone watches Sherlock, this is similar to the memory/mind palace technique, or the roman room method.
The first step is to close your eyes and imagine you’re in a hallway with a row of doors. For me, I imagine the hallway where I live in my university residence, which is a row of orange doors.
Now imagine you open up the first door. For this example let’s say you are trying to remember everything that happened last month first: you might visualize a calendar showing February. If you had a test, you might visualize your materials spread out on a desk. If there was a family member’s birthday, you might show a cake with their name on it.
The last step is to continue doing this. That’s it. Add as many rooms as you need. I used this method to memorize the entire canon of art history for a test, from 35 000 BCE to Byzantine Rome. By creating rooms for each period, I was able to visualize what was happening at the same time: it allows me to connect what happens in the Mediterranean to what’s happening in Europe to what’s happening in North Africa. It allowed me to memorize and visualize thousands of years of art and situate them in relation to each other the way a timeline just couldn’t.
I thought I would talk about this because it is almost exam season and it might be helpful for everyone who is trying to review and memorize! Good luck everyone!
germansingergirl
ellievsbear
kaledo-art
