One of the many things I’ve noticed about how college differs from high school is that there’s a lot less note-taking. Perhaps this has something to do with my school’s sustainability policy preventing teachers from drowning us in useless worksheets and redundant exercises, but I think it also has to do with the structure of the system itself. While Common Core capitalized on testing a student’s memorization skills on a variety of subjects, college is all for actually learning. I bought four giant three-subject spiral notebooks in preparation for my first semester, but have only used 10 pages, maximum, in each of them so far, and it's already the back end of October. And yet, over these past few months, I've learned — and truly understood — more than I ever thought possible.

With all this free time to think, I find myself returning to a place I haven't been to in quite a while: my head.

A couple years ago, I was introduced to this "mind palace" technique while searching for a way to memorize all the formulas I needed to pass a math test. If you’re a fan of "Sherlock," then this might sound a bit familiar. Please sit down. Unless Benedict Cumberbatch was chilling in Ancient Greece – and he may well have been, who knows with that guy – the method of loci did not originate with Gatiss and Moffat. Greek orators used this technique to deliver lengthy speeches without the use of their notes, and originated with Simonides of Ceos, who had to recall where all his friends had been sitting at the dinner table shortly before they were all crushed by a building collapse. Thanks, Simon!

Basically, the brain is far better at remembering locations than it is at remembering information. No matter your intelligence, you can use spatial memory and this mnemonic device to create visualizations of objects that remind you of what you're trying to remember (eg. you mentally open the door to your mind palace, styled after your childhood home, and the first thing you see on your route is a jar of black ink spilled across your dad's Turkish rug - black ink = writing - oh, right, you need to write your article before midnight). Mental associations linking specific physical locations and snippets of information allow those who compete in memory competitions to recall impossibly long lists of names, numbers, facts and faces.

Back in high school, I never underestimated the power of baby steps. It took a few badly-drawn Microsoft OneNote diagrams, but I eventually fashioned a mind palace styled after the Department of Mysteries from "Harry Potter."

Each room was a different school subject, with one extra office to use for general reminders. I enjoyed the feeling of solitude and control over my education, but once I realized that the public education system was fundamentally broken, I gave up on trying all that much, and my mind palace grew dusty from lack of use.

Now in college, many hours and many miles away from home, I realized that a familiar mental space can have another use: refuge.

After I renovated my mind palace so it felt more like the National Gallery of Art in D.C., I found myself strolling through its cool marble halls during times of stress and confusion, memorializing snapshots of new memories with new friends, and even remembering the occasional CVS grocery list. It's mindful meditation, in a way.

Maybe I failed that math test, but I gained a skill far more useful. No matter what you end up using it for, I highly recommend trying out the method of loci. Do it for Simon.