Remember Everything

Imagine being able to pick up any book, read it and remember everything about the book. How’s that make sense to you? Many of us don’t even remember any main points from the non-fiction book that we’ve read and completed just a while ago. We say that it’s a great book but what are the main points or laws from the book? We become speechless on the question and we are unable to tell another person about the book.

Ryan Holiday, an American Author, talks about his way of learning and remembering everything. He mostly uses many quotes from books in his talks and we wonder how he remembers all that.

He describes that there are three steps that he uses to remember everything. He has made himself an outside brain that stores all the information. Whenever he reads any book, he takes notes and then revisit and revise them and lastly he categorizes and files them. He notes all the important information and quotes on the note card.

Our brain has this heuristic memory processing that tend to remember things and prioritize information that is

·         Frequently used

·         Recently used

·         Likely to be needed to make decisions

Some of us listen to audiobooks or read from eBooks. We take notes but they are stored somewhere on our computer and we forget to remember that. Getting away from the screen, sitting down and engaging with the world that’s Infront of you is the best thing you can do to learn and remember something. The best way is to read a book that’s Infront of you and you can mark the points and take notes by hand. It’ll help you remember things.

Three process to memorize something are:

·         Take notes

·         Revise and revisit them

·         Categorize and file them

It is a slow and methodical process but it’ll be worth it. It’s not about becoming superhuman and devouring books in a way. It’s about taking the time to digest the information, think critically about it and to try to find ways to reuse it.

Reading is a pleasurable activity and we must enjoy doing that. Take on a slow process that will help you to digest and make use of the information and lessons we have learned. You don’t remember things by accident. You need to organize and systemize the things.

You’re better off starting something imperfectly than being paralyzed by hope and delusion of perfection.