How to Better Retain Information from Books, Articles, and More

The article says that books, articles, interviews, and conversations all produce information that is easy to forget. To keep it available, it recommends building a system that helps you revisit what you already learned instead of trying to memorize everything.

Reading notes

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• Take notes while reading so you keep the essence and context of what you are taking in.
• For books, use a commonplace book or an idea index to organize excerpts, thoughts, and notes.
• For conversations, interviews, and speeches, record the important points, using a phone, computer, pen, or pad.
• Digitize notes so they can be searched later, and add tags, context, questions, and related points.
• Collect more information rather than less when a point seems important or close to important, because it is easier to discard notes later than recover details from memory.
• Review notes every few weeks, and set aside regular time to go back over highlights.
• When reviewing, look for actions you can take, share the information with others, and use it in conversation when it fits.
• Use objects and mementos as reminders of lessons and experiences, such as printed quotes on a wall or items tied to a past event.
• Build a sample workflow that includes note-taking, digitizing, tagging, scheduled review, and visible reminders.
• The article concludes that the goal is not perfect memorization but a system for relearning important lessons quickly.