Memory slips? Focus drifting?

Memory, Productivity and AI, oh my!

• Designing a Memory Palace (Video Deep Dive)

• Busting a “Myth” about Memory Palaces

• Why focus isn’t about time, it’s about space

• One AI hack to Remember Anything

• One AI hack to Kick-Start Deep Work with Clarity

Let’s dive in…

MEMORYSCHOOL.COM

Want to Remember Anything? Faster? And make it Stick?

You need to master this one strategy.

Once you do:

• Conversations

• Talks without notes

• Research papers

• Entire Books

• and much more all becomes possible.

When it comes to productivity Mastering Your Memory is the hack no one talks about.

Memory impacts every area of your life, it makes you who you are, it influences your decisions, it affects your emotions, and it can give you the edge.

There is real power in a trained memory.

This is where Memory Palaces come in…

When you build a memory palace, you’re not just storing info—you’re creating a map in your mind.

You can navigate it.
You can revisit it.
It makes your ideas more solid, more connected, more yours.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR FIRST PALACE

A simple way to build memory you can actually rely on

1. Pick a place

Real or virtual. Familiar or totally new.

• A café you visited once

• A walk you took last month

• A castle you found on Google Maps

• A museum, a dream house, a made-up city

The only rule? You can see it clearly in your mind—or get interested enough to start imagining it.

2. Lay down a path

Walk through it in your mind.
Pick a logical route—left to right, top to bottom, entrance to exit.

Decide on 10–20 spots you’ll use as memory files. These are places where you’ll “store” your images (the Greeks called this ‘loci’):

• The bench outside

• A statue in the hallway

• A painting on the wall

• A broken vending machine

• The top of a spiral staircase

3. Drop your images

At each file, place a vivid, strange, exaggerated image that links to the thing you want to remember.

Example:
Want to remember “omega-3”?
Imagine a giant fish tap dancing on the hallway floor.

Want to remember “working memory”?
Picture a worker bee building Lego on the museum steps.

Weird works. Logic is forgettable—emotion sticks.

4. Walk it forward and back

Once you’ve placed your images, walk through your palace mentally.

• Start at the beginning

• Visit each file in order

• Recite what each one holds

• Then do it backwards

If you can do that, you’ve locked it in.

5. Practice retrieval

The trick isn’t just to store—it’s to recall.
The more you retrieve a memory, the stronger it becomes.
This is where spaced retrieval comes in.

Check in the next day, then a few days later, then a week later. Use the AI hack below to help.

Great question. But it reveals something deeper:
We often delay action while chasing the “perfect” setup.
But memory doesn’t need perfect…

It needs movement.

It needs creativity.

It needs emotion.

THE MEMORY PALACE MYTH

You don’t need to know the place well that you use for your Memory Palace.
You can use anywhere—a local park, a castle, a random street on Google Street View.

What matters is this:
The more interested you are in the location (or curious about it), the more likely your brain is to pay attention.

You can have as many palaces as you like.
Some will be temporary—used once, overwritten.
Others will be permanent—book palaces, law palaces, pitch palaces.

The best part?
Once you've built a few, you'll move through them effortlessly—like cities in your mind.

You won’t just remember things.
You’ll understand them faster.
You’ll think with them.
And when the time comes—you’ll be ready to use them.

Here’s what works:

Start building, even if the palace is messy

Don’t worry whether it’s forever, use it now

When it’s useful, you’ll revisit it. When it’s not, you won’t

Same goes for visualisation.

You don’t need sharp mental pictures.

You just need anchors, sounds, textures, dial up the sensory experience.

Real memory isn’t just about methods.
It’s about making the methods yours.

PRIME FOCUS

Creating space isn’t a nice idea.
It’s a productivity strategy.

One theme that comes up again and again:

Totally fair. The pace is brutal.
But here's the shift:

Just like going to the gym, deep thinking needs a ritual. A reset. A prompt.

Try this:

• At the end of each week, block 30 minutes for non-reactive thinking

• Give it a name: “Clarity Time”, “Prime Focus”, “CEO Hour”

• Don’t fill it. Let it fill you. Reflect and set intention for the upcoming week.

On Monday, start with a review of what you came up with.

After a few weeks, you’ll notice:

• Better decisions

• Faster problem-solving

• Fewer firefights

Once you train your brain to create space,
it doesn’t just fill it—
it gets smarter in it.

The AI Zone

HOW TO USE AI FOR MEMORY

Turn ChatGPT into your spaced retrieval partner.

Here’s how:

Simple Memory Spaced Retrieval Prompt:

You're my spaced retrieval memory partner.  

First, ask me what topic I’m learning today. 

Next ask if I need to share any documents, paste in any text to be reviewed.

Then, ask me how many questions I’d like to answer today.  
Then:

1. Ask one question at a time to test what I remember  
2. Wait for my answer after each question  
3. Give me feedback on how accurate or complete my response is  
4. Ask one harder or deeper follow-up question to reinforce or expand my learning  
5. Wait for my answer again  
6. Repeat until the total number of questions has been answered  

At the end, give me a summary that includes:  
- A score out of 10 for how well I remembered overall  
- A breakdown of strong vs. weak areas  
- Clear suggestions for what to review or reinforce next

Memory Spaced Retrieval Prompt:

Use GPT-4o with scheduled tasks if you want to be reminded. I’ve found this a little unstable. You may want to create a project instead and use one topic per thread.

Make sure to ask it to create a reminder task at the end of your retrieval session.

You're my spaced retrieval memory partner.

Ask one question at a time. Wait for my answer before continuing.

First, ask me:
**"What would you like to do today — memorise something new, or review something you've already studied?"**

If I choose **memorise**, ask:
**"Great — would you like to upload the content or paste it here?"**
Once I upload or paste it, break it down into question-and-answer pairs (10 max per session). Start spaced retrieval from there.

If I choose **review**, ask:
**"What topic or material would you like to review today?"**
Use the topic to pull from my previous learning history and begin the spaced retrieval session.

Then:

1. Ask how many questions I’d like to answer today  
2. Ask one question at a time based on the chosen material  
3. Wait for my answer after each question  
4. Give me feedback on how accurate or complete my response is  
5. Ask one harder or deeper follow-up question to reinforce or expand my learning  
6. Wait for my answer again  
7. After each pair of questions, rate my recall strength from 1 to 5:
   - 5 – Perfect (remembered with full detail)
   - 4 – Good (remembered but missing some nuance)
   - 3 – Partial (needed hints or guessed parts)
   - 2 – Struggled (vague or mostly incorrect)
   - 1 – Forgot (couldn’t recall at all)
8. Based on that rating, schedule the next review using these intervals:
   - 5 → Review in 4–7 days
   - 4 → Review in 3–5 days
   - 3 → Review in 2–3 days
   - 2 → Review in 1–2 days
   - 1 → Review tomorrow

At the end, give me a session summary that includes:  
- A score out of 10 for how well I remembered overall  
- A breakdown of strong vs. weak areas  
- What to review and when (based on spaced repetition)  
- Ask if they want to schedule the next review in Scheduled Tasks GPT

You can drop in a table of contents from a book, your own notes, research papers, language vocabulary or lecture slides etc.

Retrieval + challenge = memory gains.

HOW TO USE AI FOR FOCUS

Use AI to build your mental reset before deep work.

Before you sit down to focus, run this through ChatGPT, either set it up as an instruction in a project or just add it to a single thread.

My preference is set it up in a project as you can then start different focus sessions for different projects.

Prompt: Focus Coach - Flow in 30

# Focus Coach Prompt

Act as my focus coach. I have 30 minutes to focus deeply on a task. Help me enter a flow state and stay on track.

Start each 30-minute session with an inspirational quote, in **bold**.

Ask one question at a time. Wait for my answer before continuing.

---

**1. What do you want to achieve in this 30-minute session?**

(After my response, ask…)

**2. Why do you want to achieve that?**  
(What’s the deeper motivation or emotional reason behind it?)

(After my response, ask…)

**3. On a scale from 1 to 10, how challenging does this task feel right now?**  
- 1 = not challenging at all, maybe even boring  
- 10 = extremely difficult, overwhelming, or anxiety-inducing  
- 5–7 = the Goldilocks zone — just the right amount of challenge for flow

---

### Then adapt:
- If I say **1–4**, ask if I want to raise the challenge or gamify the task.  
- If I say **8–10**, ask if it feels too hard or stressful, and whether I’d like to simplify or break it down.  
- If I say **5–7**, say it’s in the Goldilocks zone and perfect for flow.

---

### Follow-ups for 1–4 or 8–10:
- Only ask one question at a time. Wait for the answer.  
- Let the user come up with a solution — don’t give one.  
- Once they are between a 5–7, move on.

---

Then guide me to **clear distractions** with this quick checklist:

### **Flow Checklist**
- [ ] Phone off  
- [ ] Notifications silenced  
- [ ] Workspace clear  
- [ ] Take one deep breath  
- [ ] Say “Let’s go.”

---

Then ask:  
**Are you ready?** (Wait for me to say “Yes.”)

---

Once I say “Yes,” respond with:

### **Let’s rock it!** 🚀  
You’re about to:  
- ⏳ *Start Your Timer*  
- 🧠 *Start Brain.fm (optional)*  
- ✅ *[Repeat my goal]*  
- ❤️ *[Repeat why I care]*

Let me know when you're done, and you’ll guide me through a 5-minute mental reset.