memory palace

Simonides...poet...mnemonic inventor of the memory palace. In the ancient days of Greece there was a great dramatic reading to be held in a hall of stone and many notable people came to see it. Simonides was nervous for this was his greatest poem yet...a poem that would truly stun the audience. As he walked out to perform his poem he was reciting it in his head. The building then collapsed and Simonides was the only survivor. The greeks needed to identify it and Simonides institutionally recalled the places of each guest as he had combined spatial recognition with his poem and each guest represented a word.
The technique of memory palace has been around since then and was a part of the Greek teachings of rhetoric.  It is a way to take a place and mentally walk through said place leaving images and symbols that represent a word at each loci or notable landmarks of this mental place. Let us for example take your local mall and imagine yourself at the entrance. "To be or not to be that is the question..."
Then imagine yourself there and see two bee's flying around. Imagine what the bees look like, sound like or even feel like if your where to touch them. Now watch the bees and imagine a guy with a machette coming around the corner and killing them. "to be or not to be." Since the guy with a machette isn't the focus he doesn't have to be remembered with such detail as the two bees.
Now walk a little way in to the next landmark. It may only be a foot or two in. It could just be the place just inside the doors... in fact it probably should be. Imagine a band playing called the question. There are question marks everywhere....on their guitars, on the backdrop behind them...Imagine the sound of their music...the smell of sweat and alcohol. The weird hair that sticks up on the lead singer. Now imagine your confusion. You turn to the convenient bypasser and ask "who are these people?"
The by passer turns to you and says dramatically. "That is...the question."
The more details in each word the better the more solid a memory it becomes. A good memory palace should be good enough so that although a few details are forgotten the overall structure is never forgotten.  This can be done in any place you know well enough to walk through mentally. Its the most efficient way to convert short term memory to long term which is one of the reasons its so useful.