Is a memory palace actually useful? It helped me memorize the first 20 digits of pi

It felt like a gargantuan achievement - I'm someone who regularly forgets the most important item on a shopping list

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There's a scene from the 2010s series Sherlock that I think about a lot. Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) visits his mind palace" to figure out how he and his friend/minion John Watson (Martin Freeman) got drugged. Words, phrases and images float around his head, and he moves them around with his hands.

It's a memory technique," Watson explains to a confused onlooker. You plot a map of a location - it doesn't have to be a real place - and then you deposit memories there." Theoretically, he says, you can never forget anything, he says: All you have to do is find your way back to it."