Memory techniques – learn to memorise a deck of cards

How is it possible to remember 52 cards in the right order? The answer is neither talent nor a photographic memory – it is a system, and it can be learned.

In this Learn something new episode Jan Sindre goes through the memory techniques behind it: how you build a memory palace, how each card is turned into a distinct image, and how those images are placed along a route you already know. We also look at the PAO system, where every card gets a person, an action and an object – so that several cards can be packed into a single memory.

The point is not the deck of cards in itself. It is understanding why the brain remembers images and places so much better than numbers and symbols – and how you can use the same trick on names, course material, shopping lists and presentations.

The memory palace, step by step

The method is old – it is known from antiquity – and it swaps something the brain is bad at for something it is good at. Numbers and symbols slide apart. Places and images do not.

Four links

1. Pick a route you already knowThe house you grew up in, the way to work, the rooms in the flat. What matters is that the order sits without your having to think.
2. Turn each card into an imageNot “queen of spades”, but a particular person or thing you can see. The sharper and the stranger, the better it sticks.
3. Put the image somewhere on the routeThe first card in the hallway, the next on the kitchen counter. Let the image do something to the place – it is the interaction that is remembered.
4. Walk the route in your headRetrieving it is just walking the same way again. The cards come in the right order because the rooms do.

PAO – packing three cards into one image

Before PAO makes sense, you need a way to get from “queen of spades” to a particular person. This is where most people stop, and it is simpler than it looks: you let the two pieces of information on the card decide one thing each.

From card to person

What the card says	What it decides	Why it sticks
The rank	The first letter of the name	A number can be tied to a letter it resembles or rhymes with – an 8 looks like a B, a 7 looks like an L.
The suit	What kind of person it is	Four suits give four categories: young or grown, woman or man. You avoid inventing fifty-two people from scratch.

To manage a whole deck, 52 separate images is a lot of places to fill. PAO solves that by giving each card three roles, and then combining three cards into a single scene.

Person, action, object

Role	What it is	Taken from
Person	Who is doing something in the image	The first card you draw
Action	What is being done	The card you draw next
Object	What it is being done with	The third card

The point is not the deck of cards. It is that the same trick works on everything else.

The same method, other uses: names you want to remember in a meeting, the points of a presentation you would rather not read off the page, course material for an exam, the shopping list. The deck is simply the hardest exercise – and therefore the one that shows most clearly that the system works.

If you need room for more, you make the route longer – you do not change method.

How it scales: one deck with PAO needs seventeen stops. To take two decks, you add seventeen new places to the same route – out of the door and on down the street, for instance. The order holds because the route holds. It is also why it pays to pick a place with many distinct rooms: a school you attended beats a small flat, simply because it has more places.

The content is practical knowledge you can practise yourself. Sources and further reading are given in the episode.

Main topics

• Memory technique and memorisation
• The memory palace (the method of loci)
• Encoding cards as images
• The PAO system (person, action, object)
• Practice and progression
• Carrying it over into everyday life and study

Questions this episode answers

• How do some people remember an entire deck of cards in the right order?
• What is a memory palace, and how do you build one?
• How do you turn a playing card into an image you remember?
• What is the PAO system, and why does it make memorising faster?
• How long does it take to learn this?
• Can the techniques be used for anything other than decks of cards?

Key points

• Remembering a deck of cards is not about talent, but about a system you can learn.
• The brain remembers images and places far better than abstract symbols.
• With a memory palace you attach information to places you already know well.
• The same techniques work on names, numbers, course material and presentations.