Fans of Sherlock Holmes will remember the term “memory palace” or “mind palace.”  It turns out, it’s not just useful for fictional characters, it can be used to help you remember details too.

Here’s how it works: If you need to remember something, just imagine a place or path you know well, then drop pieces of information along it to be retrieved later as you retrace your steps.

In one study, researchers found people who used the “memory palace” method remembered about 62 words from a list after 20 minutes, while those who used another memorization method remembered about 41 words, and those who were given no training remembered about 36 words.

So the next time you head to the grocery store, trying storing your list in your “mind palace” and see if it works!

(Newser)