For your exam: start free with ten words on your own body. Then your topics, on places you already know. Tomorrow, see what you still remember.
Try the free lessonNo account needed.
The first lesson
The method
You already know the order of your own body, feet first and head last. The method uses that order. To remember a list, you put one thing on each part of your body by writing a short scene where the thing does something to it.
The ANCHOR smashes down onto your feet.
To recall the list, you start at your feet and work up, asking what’s on each part. When you remember something, its place lights up.
A few plain words are enough, such as “The candle drips wax on your knees.” If you can see or feel it, good; if not, the words still work. In the study our first lesson is based on, how vividly people could imagine things made no difference.
From the first lesson. Ten parts, nothing to set up, and it goes with you into the exam hall or the meeting.
The way to work or the walk to the station. A route runs one way, and its landmarks don’t repeat.
Your home or your office, in the order you walk through it, drawn as a map of your own.
People have used places this way for more than two thousand years. A Roman handbook for speakers, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, describes the method in the 80s BC. It tells students to mark every fifth place with a golden hand.
In Without Notes, a place turns gold only when you remember what’s on it.
After today
Two scores, one for each way. Then, if you like, five of your own things on a walk you know.
A short check of both lists, from memory. It opens on the same phone or computer, or comes by email at the time you pick.
The same check, a week later.
A last one a month later, if you want it.
Every number says how it was made: from memory, on which day, after how many walks. There’s no daily goal to keep up.
With full access
Each scene is drawn as you add it. When the last one is in, the place plays back, each picture where you put it, with your own sentence under it. After you remember a thing on a walk, its picture shows again, on any phone or computer you sign in on. Up to 60 a month, 10 a day.
The TEAPOT lands on the vending machine.
The ROCKET crashes through your knees.
The UMBRELLA snaps open and jams the photocopier.These are examples: each is an AI illustration of the sentence under it, in the app’s own style. Only the sentence is sent to OpenAI, which draws it, and only for people 18 and over who switch pictures on.
Your own material
After the first lesson, paste or type your own points, numbers, words or names, and Without Notes suggests a way to learn each, with a line on why.
Places, and cards
Your topic list or the steps of a process go on places, in order. Terms and definitions become cards that ask you first and show the answer after.
Places, in order
One key word for each point in your outline, one point to a place, so the whole talk has an order you can walk.
Places, and number cards
Your opening, your reasons and your answers to the objections you expect, in order. Numbers are harder, so each figure gets a card of its own.
Cards, both ways
Product lines, specs and the objections you hear every week, checked from the question to the answer and back.
Cards, both ways
Your own word list, asked both ways: one now, the other in tomorrow’s check.
The people list
A name and a short note on who they are. Say it once, link it to something, then see the note and type the name. Names get a list of their own and don’t go on your body.
It helps less with skills you have to perform and with things you’d look up anyway. It holds what you put in it, and won’t improve your memory in general.
Evidence
The first lesson gives you two scores, one for each way, from the same test with the same time per word, and shows how long each round took. Tomorrow’s check shows what’s left of both lists a day later. Every number Without Notes shows you comes from your own lists, and says how many walks you’ve had.
We make no promises about your brain, and we won’t quote a percentage from someone else’s study. Once enough people have done the first lesson, including a group that takes the first round twice before learning the method, we’ll publish the combined results here, along with how we got them.
Ten parts of the body, typed from feet to head, worked as well as a classical memory palace for recalling a list in order.
Kluger and colleagues, 2022, 221 people, repeated with 147 more
Recalling something before you look at it again is one of the best-supported ways to learn.
Yang and colleagues, 2021, a review of 222 classroom studies
Spreading those recalls over several days works better than packing them into one sitting.
Mawson and Kang, 2025, a review of 22 classroom studies
At a real social event, practising recall of names beat a picture trick.
The memory palace on its own has less evidence behind it than its fans suggest. For young adults the measured advantage is small and uncertain.
Ondřej, 2025, a review of 85 experiments
That’s why every walk in Without Notes asks you to recall before it shows you anything, and why the checks are spread over days.
Price
Billing is the most common complaint in one- and two-star reviews of memory apps, so here are our rules.
$0
Every tool, for up to 10 of your own things.
$49.99 a year
Renews each year until you cancel. Or $14.99 for 90 days, and then it ends. €49.99 or €14.99 in the EU, VAT included.
You can buy full access from your lessons page once you’ve done the free first lesson.
Questions
The first three lessons are free, and so is every tool, for up to 10 of your own things and 15 names. Walks, checks and exports stay free. Full access removes the limits.
Not for the first lesson, and not for tomorrow’s check, which opens on the same phone or computer. At the end of the lesson you can give your email to get the check by email, and then sign in on any device.
You don’t need to. In the study our first lesson is based on, how vividly people could imagine things made no difference. You make the word do something to the place, and write that as a short sentence.
No. It’s for the specific things you put in it: a list, a talk, your exam topics, the names from a meeting.
We haven’t measured that with enough people yet, so we don’t give a time. If the words come too fast, you can ask for more time per word, and both rounds get the same slower pace.
A memory palace is a set of places you know, in a fixed order, used to hold things you want to remember in that order. Without Notes starts with your body because it needs no setup, and a 2022 study found that ten parts of the body worked as well as a classical memory palace for recalling a list in order. After the first lesson, a walk you know, your own rooms or a drawn room can hold the next things.
Anything with an order or a fixed list: exam topics, the points of a talk, the steps of a process, answers to objections, product lines, a set of words. It helps less with skills you have to perform, and with things you’d look up anyway.
Names work differently. At a real social event, practising recall of names beat a picture trick (Morris and colleagues, 2005). So names don’t go on your body. You add a name with a short note, then see the note and type the name, with a longer gap each time.
Full access is $49.99 a year, renewing until you cancel, or $14.99 for 90 days. We email you 35 and 7 days before each renewal, and one tap cancels it. If you change your mind within 14 days, you get the full amount back.
What you add and your scenes are stored so we can bring them back for your checks. We never sell them, and we never use them to train AI models.
Yes. The places and the figure are made with image models under a written style guide, and a person chooses each one before it’s used. The stars, the lines and everything that shows what you remembered are drawn in code.
Without Notes runs in your phone’s browser. Versions for the app stores come later.
If you’ve noticed changes in your memory that worry you, please talk to a doctor first. Without Notes is a study tool, and it can’t diagnose or treat anything. It’s made for keeping a list or a talk in your head, at any age.