subject: What Is Loci Strategy [print this page] What Is Loci Strategy What Is Loci Strategy
Loci strategy is derived on the notion that you can best remember a place that you are familiar with, if you are able to connect or associate it with something, thus, coming to an inference that linking something you need to remember to someplace else or with a mental image of a location that you recognize very well, will point you to a clue to help you remember things or list of items better. This strategy can be applied through the use of organization by coordinating separate elements, visualization by creating a vivid picture in the mind, and association by linking and connecting ideas to events or things.
Here is a method in the loci strategy that works well if you are skilled at visualizing. Here's how it works:
Think of a place which you familiar with, such as your living room
Visualize the locations and its features in your mind in logical order. For example, imagine the track you usually take from the front door to the sofa at the end of the room. Start at the front door, turn through the living room, notice the position of furniture in the living room, and go through the coffee table to the TV set consistently until you reach the sofa.
Link each item to be remembered with a specific or particular feature at one of the locations, for example, you put this item if front of the TV set
If you want to recall the items, visualize your living room and go through it per area such as near your TV set, your sofa and the coffee table in your mind. In every item that you associated with a place in your living room should pop-up to mind as you mentally go through your living room
To cite an example, here is a list of things needed to be bought for a project:
colored pencils
crepe paper
glue
markers
ribbons
wooden scrolls
Visualize your living room, think of the glue spilled all over the floor on the front door before you enter. Try to imagine that you accidentally stepped on it.
Now as you enter the living room, you see the crepe paper rolls stretched all over the sofa set. You found a big bow of ribbon wrapping the TV set as if it were a new gift. The structure of the coffee table as you visualize it is made of the colored pencils and markers. Finally, you notice the wooden scrolls on the fireplace burning as firewood.
This method is said to be proven and works well because it alters the way you think and be reminded of things by using familiar places as clues; and that these places are in systematic order and that you are very well oriented with, that one thought only flows in one area to the next, causing retention to be easy. With the method of loci, you will be able to apply it with remembering several thoughts like important names in an event, some portion and parts in a speech, your to-do-list, or even thoughts you want to be reminded off often.
