Reading and Not Remembering What You Read

In that location are few things guaranteed to improve your professional and personal lives similar reading more. Reading has been the 'hugger-mugger' to so many peoples' success, from Pecker Gates who reads fifty books a year to Elon Musk who claims to have read 10+ hours a day when he was younger ( including the entire Encyclopedia Britannica when he was just 9! )

Unfortunately, whether you're reading to expand your imagination or put yourself on the path for promotion, finding more than time to read in our already-hectic schedules is difficult. Especially when so much content is coming at united states on a daily ground.

A decade-old written report found we're exposed to 100,000 words a day. (And this was before nosotros started spending hours a day staring at our phones). So if we can't spend more than time reading, how can nosotros brand sure we're getting the nigh out of the fourth dimension we do have?

RescueTime was designed to help you optimize how y'all spend your time. In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know to make the most of your reading time, from how your brain turns information into long-term retentiveness, to what to do before, during, and subsequently you read.

How your brain turns reading into memory (and why it doesn't all the fourth dimension)

Reading more won't practise you any adept if you don't remember what y'all've read. The problem is, your brain can't store everything and so it has to make decisions virtually what'south of import and will need to be used after.

So how does it make that decision? The easiest manner to retrieve near this is to talk nearly High School English class.

Well-nigh people tin recollect the plot, characters, and maybe a few key scenes from books they studied in English class. Yet forget entire books they read only a few months ago. Why is that?

The uncomplicated fact is, yous recollect because you had to. In form, you read for a purpose (getting a course) and equally such, you knew you'd have to utilise the information and connect it to larger themes or ideas (whether for a paper or quiz). Merely that book you picked up at the airport last weekend? Sure, it helped kill a few hours on the plane, only it wasn'tfor anything.

And simply similar your High School curriculum was designed to build off what you were learning, the more you're able to connect the information you lot become from reading, the more than knowledgable yous'll become. As Warren Buffett explains:

"That'southward how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of yous can practice it, but I guarantee not many of y'all volition do it."

This doesn't mean y'all should simply read things you'll immediately utilize. But merely that if you lot desire to remember what y'all read y'all need to exist specific and intentional.

Desire to be more than intentional with how you lot spend your time each day? RescueTime gives you in-depth reports and insights to aid yous build better habits and routines. Try it for complimentary.

Earlier reading: Recall about impression, association, and repetition

The science of memory is pretty complicated and goes well beyond simply intent or purpose. You tin have the all-time intentions when you pick upwardly a book but still forget everything one time you plow the last folio.

Instead, setting yourself upwards to remember what you lot read comes downwardly to hit iii factors: Impression, association, and repetition.

Let's look at each:

Impression: Choosing the correct books

Our brains beloved to lump experiences together to relieve energy (and infinite). And and so in society to remember what we read, it needs to stand out. Yet most of us make ii big mistakes.

1. Nosotros read what everyone else is reading
2. We forcefulness ourselves to become through books we're not interested in (Hello, sunk toll fallacy!)

There are ii obvious problems here.

Outset, the publishing industry puts out l,000+ books a year, plus the millions of web log posts, articles, and studies out there. There's merely likewise much to read if you don't curate your reading listing.

Next, forcing yourself to read books you're non interested in just wastes time. As studies accept plant, when you're impressed by something, there's a much higher probability that you'll remember information technology and exist able to employ information technology later.

One suggestion is to follow Joseph Campbell's advice of "the fewer citations, the better the volume," which helps you lot focus on primary resources.

Or tryQuartz at Piece of work's Khe Hy's slightly less scientific approach and look for books recommended past diverse groups of people. Hy prioritizes readying whatever book that is suggested by three friends from three different professional person circles.

If all else fails, go with your gut. Pick books and articles that you're genuinely interested in for personal reasons. If you detect yourself falling asleep or checking your phone every 2 minutes, information technology's probably worth moving on.

Association: Connecting the book to "your why"

If interest in the book'due south subject is the first function of how to remember what you read, the purpose is part two. Why are you reading this book/commodity/written report correct now?

Of grade, information technology'due south fine for your purpose to be general interest. Just if yous're looking to call up and use what you lot read, it's better to know how you're going to use it.

In a written report published in Retentivity & Cognition, researchers gave 2 groups the same cloth to read. Ane group was told they'd have a exam at the cease, while the others were told they would have to teach someone the fabric they read.

In the end, both groups were given the same exam. Nevertheless, the "teaching" group ended upwards performing significantly improve:

"When compared to learners expecting a test, learners expecting to teach recalled more material correctly, they organized their retrieve more effectively and they had amend retentivity for specially important information."

Having a articulate purpose earlier you read tin make all the difference in remembering and recalling information.

Repetition: Do a high-level skim (and don't worry nearly the spoilers)

If you hate spoilers, this section is going to hurt. Our brains dear novel experiences (impressions), but likewise pay special attention to annihilation we repeatedly practice. That's why skimming and doing 'pre-reading' is a dandy fashion to solidify what you're reading in memory.

In his 1940 volume, How to Read a Volume, Mortimer Adler explains that the first stage of reading to remember is what he calls the "Structural stage".

Instead of merely flipping to the first folio, yous should commencement with a full general understanding of what the volume is about. At a minimum, Adler suggests noting a few things:

• Is this book applied or theoretical?
• What field of study does information technology address?
• How is the book divided (not just the table of contents, but other divisions)?
• What bug is the author trying to solve?

Skim the book and read titles and random quotes. Go through the citations or index and see what sources it draws from. In other words, requite yourself a picture of the whole before diving in.

If y'all're worried about missing nuance by skimming, listen to this advice from neuroscientist and author Sam Harris, who says "almost books are as well long" and that we shouldn't be agape to read in unconventional ways or turn to formats (lectures, blogs, etc…) with a lower opportunity cost.

While reading: Commit to agile reading, take better notes, and build connections

While we all learned to read every bit children, we weren't taught what's chosen 'active reading.' Simply put, agile reading is the process of reading with conclusion to understand and evaluate how and if to employ the information y'all're reading.

Compared to more 'passive' reading where you simply have the words in, actively engaging with a volume is more easily-on, deliberate, and, if we're being honest, slower. But the payoff is immense.

Here are some tips for how to make the nigh of your time really reading:

Commit to regular reading sessions and cake distractions

Y'all demand space and time to read actively. Notwithstanding, a study published in Fourth dimension magazine found that Americans read, on average, just nineteen-minutes a day. And that number drops to 10-minutes or less for people nether 34.

According to a University of Michigan Health study, at a minimum, people should be reading for 30 minutes a day. Not only does this aid you get through books quickly, but consistent reading has likewise been found to increase attention bridge, develop deeper connections, and brand usa more empathetic.

To hit your daily reading goal, it can assistance to cake distractions like social media and entertainment sites while you're trying to read. RescueTime's FocusTime feature can do just that.

Take better notes

Being swept abroad by a story is fine, but when yous're reading to learn and remember, you can't let your mind become a river that sweeps you away.

1 of the all-time means to do this is to go a ruthless notetaker. Your librarian might kill y'all for this, only using a technique such equally marginalia (handwriting notes in the margin and marking upward central patterns for follow-ups) or sketchnotes (drawing notes and ideas) will make you a more active reader and help lock information in your memory.

There are plenty of different methods for taking improve notes, but ii things you'll want to avoid are:

1. Highlighting, re-reading, and typing: Studies evidence passive techniques like this are pretty much useless and can even make it harder to create connections in your memory.
2. Spending more time note-taking and indexing than reading: Your notes are just skillful if you're able to use them and re-engage with them. Skip the massive indexes and detailed notes and observe a system that works for you.

Build mental connections while y'all read

Along with note-taking, agile reading involves creating associations between what you're currently reading and what you already know about the subject matter or how information technology applies to your life.

As you read and come across new ideas, try to acquaintance them with familiar memories equally a means of creating a bond betwixt old and new. This might mean pairing new thoughts with familiar objects or using acronyms to connect ideas.

For Farnam Street founder, Shane Parrish, the best way to create associations is to employ a "running tally" as you lot read. Here's how his procedure is explained in Quartz :

"As he's reading, Parrish marks out thoughts, questions, and 'most importantly connections to other ideas' in the margins. (Note, he strongly prefers physical books.) Once he reaches the stop of a chapter, 'without looking back' he writes down the main points and arguments, specifically noting topics that can be applied somewhere else."

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After reading: Utilize, explain, and revisit

At this signal, you've washed everything in your power to eat, digest, and connect the ideas you've read. But our long-term memory doesn't but rely on this type of 'learned knowledge' merely as well on knowledge that is 'experienced.'

When we connect memories or thoughts to different experiences (reading the volume, talking about it, meeting a friend who has a different perspective) those moments are stored in our neocortex—a function of the encephalon that is much easier for us to recollect.

One time you've gotten through a book the work then becomes turning that information into feel. Here are a few tips:

Utilise what you've read

Let'southward jump back into our High Schoolhouse English grade example for a second. The reason you call back what you read way back then isn't just because y'all knew you'd have to use information technology. But also considering yous actually did. You wrote tests and papers and had discussions on the topic. You connected the ideas to bigger themes and new ideas. Yet how oft do you exercise that with what you've read these days?

One of the best ways to call back what you read is to find opportunities to employ information technology. Talk to a friend nigh it, share thoughts online, write a synopsis and hash out it with someone who doesn't know the volume. Any and all applications will help you lot turn these ideas into memories.

Explain it to someone else

Equally we wrote before, you're more likely to think what you've read if yous have to teach it. Just even better is teaching information technology to a child.

According to Nobel winning physicist Richard Feynman, ane of the best ways to really learn annihilation is to explain information technology in the most bones terms possible. Short sentences. No jargon. Common language only. These limitations force yous to sympathize the cadre of the topic and not mask misunderstanding nether frilly language.

Revisit and organize your notes

While yous explicate and apply what you've read, you'll more than likely find spots where y'all've forgotten or aren't completely sure about the ideas. This is where it's time to use all those great notes y'all wrote.

Go back through the source material and your notes and see what sticks out to you. Make sure you're translating jargon into simple sentences. And and so organize your own notes into a uncomplicated story that flows. A not bad manner to think virtually this is as an lift pitch. If you had but xxx seconds to explain the about matter y'all learned from this book, what would yous say?

Reading to remember is more piece of work, only the results are worth information technology

With all the urgent tasks that surroundings us every single day, it's easy to forget the joy and benefits of reading. And while actively reading might brand it a less relaxing action, these techniques have compounding returns.

This isn't to say you shouldn't grab a paperback and autumn into someone else's globe once in a while. But simply that if you lot're reading to recall and abound either personally or professionally, you need to be more deliberate.

The more you read, recall, and connect ideas, the more your cognition base grows. And not only volition y'all become more than confident, but also more artistic.

Desire to find more time to read? RescueTime lets you accept dorsum command of your time each day and focus on what matters. Notice out more and effort information technology for free.

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Source: https://blog.rescuetime.com/how-to-remember-what-you-read/