Close your eyes and walk into your house. You can do it without a single mistake. You know where the fridge is, where the sofa stands, where the bed is. Your mind keeps this map perfectly, with no effort.
Now imagine you could hang twenty five facts on that map. This is what I call house files. I use this filing system most of the time, and it is one of the most useful chapters in Memory Power.
How to build it
Pick five rooms or sections of your house. If you live in a small flat, that could be the bathroom, kitchen, living room, hall and bedroom. In each room, choose five things. They are your files.
Now follow these rules.
- Stand near the main door of the first room.
- Start from the right or the left, it does not matter, but be consistent. Go clockwise or anticlockwise.
- Pick big items over small items.
- Spread your five items evenly across the room.
- Do not use the same kind of item in every room. If the bedroom has a bed, do not choose the kitchen mat.
In a bedroom you may choose furniture. In the kitchen you may choose appliances. Room one holds files one to five. Room two holds six to ten. Room three holds eleven to fifteen. Room four holds sixteen to twenty, and room five takes the rest, up to twenty five.
Now do the important part. Walk through all twenty five in order until you know every number and every file without any hesitation. Spend a day on this. It is the foundation. If your files are weak, nothing you hang on them will stay.
How to use them
Take the thing you want to remember, make a picture, and put the picture on the file. One thing on one file. Make it large and vivid, as we have learnt with the other methods. Later, when you walk through the rooms in your mind, each file hands you its picture.
Sort by room, not just by number
The real power is that you can group ideas by room. When I studied for a psychology test, I used the first room for five major psychologists. The second room held their theories. The third held experiments. I went on until all my notes were hanging on my files.
The book also gives the example of an automobile salesman. The first room carries five selling features of his own car, such as leg room, financing and the sunroof. The next four rooms each belong to a competitor, and hold five benefits of his car over theirs. A customer trusts a salesperson who knows the whole market.
Review before you sleep
Each night, walk once through your twenty five files in your mind, from the first room to the last. It takes about two minutes. If a picture has faded, make it larger and funnier and put it back. This small walk is a quick review, and it keeps your notes fresh without opening a single book.
What a student can do
Take your notes for the next test. Say you are studying the freedom struggle. Room one could carry five leaders. Room two, five movements. Room three, five important dates turned into pictures. Fill your files with whatever will help you most.
If you are a working professional, the same twenty five files will hold procedures, new training or product details.
Make more houses
I have made these files in every home I have ever lived in. I have made them in my friends' homes too. I strongly encourage you to do the same with the homes of your relatives. You could create two or three hundred files in just a few hours. Next time you visit your grandmother, walk through her house with this in mind.
One word of caution. Do not hurry through the first step and jump to filing. If the files are shaky, you will blame the method, when the fault is in the preparation.
This is one idea from my book Memory Power.
