The Mind Palace Technique: How the video game Hitman World of Assassination transformed me into an academic weapon.

I found inspiration for this technique from Ali Abdaal, author of the New York Times bestseller Feel Good Productivity, and a Youtuber who reaches millions with helpful lifestyle and study tips.

In one of my favorite videos, Abdaal describes a technique used as the Mind Palace method. I had been practicing the mind palace method intermittent throughout study periods, and was pleasantly surprised it proved to be an actual method.

The Mind Palace technique requires that you imagine a scene that you remember vividly. Smell the air, feel the temperature outside, and notice the natural features and life around you.

Then, as you walk through this scene, you attach a key concept you are learning to each location. The key concept can be whatever you’d like from the unit, and as you walk throughout, you spend time enjoying the pleasant scenery and as a little brain stimulator, you go over the concept in your head.

For example, to remember my biology unit notes on the Kreb cycle, I imagined the modern beach mansion from the beach scene in the video game Hitman: World of Assassination.

Inside the house, there is a hallway that connects to a technology room. Inside the technology room, there is computers, tech gear, and weaponry.

Each computer I glance at in this dream world presents a blue lit- diagram of the Krebs cycle, and I tell myself in order to retrieve the key to hack the computer, I must correctly input the order and diagram of the Kreb Cycle as the password.

The whole scene carries a whimsical, apprehensive air to it as you wait for the enemy to arrive at the home, and have limited time to explore the house’s rooms before you must prepare your player for the murder.

Attaching the detailed and confusing diagrams of science to the pleasant experience of playing a video game will make you more likely to associate the pleasure of using tasks and leveling up in games to understanding vocab and concepts for school.

This method can be used not only for science, but also for history (imprinting the names and years of wars and historical figures) to language learning (writing Japanese symbols on the doors of the house, for example)

I encourage you to try this technique and let me know how it worked for you!

xoxo,

Addie