So for example, a palace of heads being the number and Latin incipit of each psalm, and then acronyms for the body texts of the psalms. I can spend part of my time building the head palace and part of my time building acronyms, with regular review, but I should spend most of my time simply reading and contemplating the psalms for my devotional. I should keep the palace of heads for life, but abandon the acronyms once the text of the psalm is memorized with 80% or greater fidelity.
If you haven't tried Tothero's method yet, check out her video and experiment with it. It requires very little maintenance work. You should end your acronym practice for a given text once its no longer needed, but return to it if ever it is.
You don't need to abandon actual acronyms since you're not going to commit them to memory the way you would mental images of body items stored in a memory palace. Body palaces should be retired once the heads are solid.
I'd also make sure that reading and contemplation sessions are separate, unless it's a deliberate form of contemplative reading.
Contemplation will also help you connect the body items to their heads. Simple recitation and other forms of retrieval practice help too, which are more rewarding during contemplation than doing it during memory practice.
You should also have a list of different techniques to experiment with (not all at once, of course), since you'll want to find out what works best for you. The loci + acronym combo is just a good starting point.
You can also aim for lower or higher than 80% fidelity, that's just a ballpark figure, it depends on how important the material is to you, how hard the last 20% is, and how satisfied you are with what you can recall from memory. Sometimes 98% is just as easy as 80%.
Keep the head palaces for as long as they bring value to your life.
So for example, a palace of heads being the number and Latin incipit of each psalm, and then acronyms for the body texts of the psalms. I can spend part of my time building the head palace and part of my time building acronyms, with regular review, but I should spend most of my time simply reading and contemplating the psalms for my devotional. I should keep the palace of heads for life, but abandon the acronyms once the text of the psalm is memorized with 80% or greater fidelity.
That's the gist of it.
If you haven't tried Tothero's method yet, check out her video and experiment with it. It requires very little maintenance work. You should end your acronym practice for a given text once its no longer needed, but return to it if ever it is.
You don't need to abandon actual acronyms since you're not going to commit them to memory the way you would mental images of body items stored in a memory palace. Body palaces should be retired once the heads are solid.
I'd also make sure that reading and contemplation sessions are separate, unless it's a deliberate form of contemplative reading.
Contemplation will also help you connect the body items to their heads. Simple recitation and other forms of retrieval practice help too, which are more rewarding during contemplation than doing it during memory practice.
You should also have a list of different techniques to experiment with (not all at once, of course), since you'll want to find out what works best for you. The loci + acronym combo is just a good starting point.
You can also aim for lower or higher than 80% fidelity, that's just a ballpark figure, it depends on how important the material is to you, how hard the last 20% is, and how satisfied you are with what you can recall from memory. Sometimes 98% is just as easy as 80%.
Keep the head palaces for as long as they bring value to your life.