How to Use the Roman Room System

The Roman Room System is a kind of memory palace that can be used to memorize a large number of facts and recall them in order. It won’t give you an eidetic memory, but can greatly increase the amount of information you can store in your mind.

In the Roman room system, a room is imagined and filled with furniture. An ordered journey is created through the room. The journey through the room should be the same every time. It might look something like this if standing at the doorway:

1. Near left corner — on the table
2. Left wall — picture frame
3. Far left corner — window
4. Back wall — couch
5. Far right corner — closet
6. Right wall — chair
7. Near right corner — empty corner
8. Doorway
9. Ceiling
10. Floor in middle of room

You would walk through the imaginary journey in the same order every time.

Here’s an illustration of those positions, with the small square at the bottom representing the door to the room:

To remember a list of items, place one or two mnemonic images in each location of the memory palace. If an item in the list isn’t a concrete thing that can be pictured, you can use mnemonics to create an image for it.

To learn more about the Roman room technique, read about the method of loci, Sherlock’s mind palace, and Moonwalking with Einstein.

You might also be interested in reading about the difference between memory palaces, memory journeys, mind palaces, and Roman rooms.