How to Remember Everything you Learn, Forever
How many books have you read, podcasts have you listened to, and YouTube videos watched, and while you remember the name of the person and the feelings, but you just can not remember the lessons learned.
This used to happen to me too until I implemented these 3 habits.
The underlying principle here is to make your brain work for it. It's just like working out. The harder we work out or run, the stronger or faster we become.
Habit 1: Think on paper
I'm obsessed with efficiencies and I love tech however, when we take notes on a screen, it's not allowing us to drive the new insights into our brain. It's so shallow in fact that we're likely to forget it as soon as we switch apps or close our laptops.
By thinking on paper, we're not distracted allowing up to hold the rethought longer. The longer we hold the thought the stronger the neuro connection we create to this new thought in our brain.
Then Habit 2 will make this new connection even stronger...
Habit 2: Turn the Information into understanding with summarization
If great to highlight, underline, and quote new insights but so far it's only information. What you really need to do here is to turn it into understanding.
You do this simply by summarizing the new information into your own words. By doing so you'll connect these new insights to what you already understand to drive it deeper making the neural connections even stronger.
Now that you've taken the clear thinking and turned it into understanding, let's make sure you remember it forever which is habit 3...
Habit 3: Pop quiz yourself with Spaced Repetition
While we hated pop-quizzes in school, research shows that pop quizzes actually serve to drive our understanding deeper, strengthening our recall. I have two processes for you. One is the most effective and the other while effective is the most efficient.
The effective process for practicing spaced repetition is by using index cards. Take your new insights, summarize them into your own words, and write them on the back of some index cards. Then write a question about it on the front.
Beginning with one pile of index cards, go through and start quizzing yourself. The ones you get wrong to go to the bottom of the pile. The ones you get right, start a new pile for say 3 days from now. Continue the process spacing out the correct answer far enough to stretch your memory depending on how easy it was for you.
The efficient process is an app called ANKI. It's a flashcard app with built-in timed option intervals. You set the questions and answers then take a few minutes a day to check it. Depending on your answers, you select a time frame for spacing it out to pop-quiz yourself again. I use it for much more than what I'm learning. I use it for birthdays, names, reminders, etc.
I use both processes. I have index cards and I use the app.
In conclusion; to remember everything you learn forever, make your brain work for it. You do this by thinking on paper, turning the new information into understanding by summarizing, and then pop quiz yourself with spaced repetition.
For an in-depth study, read Make It Stick