Pegging Lists - The Ten Commandments Room

The last few days, I have been sharing Pegging Lists with you. A pegging list is a list of things you already know like say the alphabet which makes a cool list and that I often use for organizing material often.

Loci, is one of the oldest pegging list methods. To memorize lots of information you will need more than one room or location. Start with one room, draw a diagram in your notebook, number the items. And then memorize the list of items in order. A good Loci room has about ten items and some items are easy to visualize in different ways. You might have a person or a cat or a portrait. Ten items is about right for a starting Loci room. I shared my laundry room with you that has 11 items in it including a cat. The laundry room is small, but sometimes if I have to remember say twenty items, I add more cats and a dog. I have a specific order for these pets.

If you want to learn more about Loci, I recommend Visualize the Faith by Kevin Vost. It is a great book for Catholics or helping a youngster learn their catechism. And it is a great book for anyone, no matter what your faith because he explains the memorization methods so well.

He starts off showing readers how to memorize the Ten Commandments and he includes a diagram of a room for this purpose. I call the room he used The Ten Commandments Room, and I share it with my students and I have added it to my own memory palace, a collection of imaginary rooms used for memorization.