How To Always Remember What You Learn

Quiz time — have you ever spent an ungodly amount of time learning something, just to forget it in a few weeks time?

If you have answered yes to my question (I wonder how I knew), it’s the perfect time to do something about it. Then let’s go and tackle the problems that cause this.

The first problem is that most people use re-reading as a method of studying which is not very effective. If you want to know more about that you can read here.

Now that you know a proper way of studying(you do know, right?), we can do something to help us remember things in the long term. The most important thing you must do is set a proper schedule to revise the material you studied.

Is revision so important to the point that I have to make a schedule for it?

Yes, it is. The more time that passes after you learn the material the less you will remember. But, you can interrupt that process by revising the material you learn. Let me set an example for you:

After taking a class you have a new material to study. The first thing you do is read the material and notes you have taken during class(I don’t recommend taking notes during class, but most people do it, so if you have any you can use them). Every time you read a paragraph you test yourself to see if you remember what you read.

After finishing the material think of some questions that can be on the test and see if you can answer them. You can even ask other students to give you questions. Write down which questions you got right and which questions you got wrong.

Now comes the important part. Take a break!

I recommend taking a break in the range of 10 minutes to even an hour (that is what I do), but even if you don’t do anything for the rest of the day, you can get good results if you revise the material the next day. After your break, revise the material again, but first ask yourself all the questions you answered previously.

Why did I write down which questions I got wrong if I was going to do them all again?

To pay attention to questions you got wrong. Even if you got an answer to a question right the first time, it does not mean you will remember it forever. Go through all the questions one by one and answer them all. Don’t think “I know the answer” and skip a question, or look in your notes for the answer. Try as hard as you can to remember the answer.

The next day you have do to another revision(it gets easier from now, trust me 😃). First, go through questions and answer them all, and then if you have something that you forgot go through your notes to remind yourself.

Remember: First answer questions, then look at the notes.

Then you can start spacing out your revisions. After this one, you can wait 3 days and then revise the material the same way. After that, the next revision can be in a week(7 days). With this way of revision, you will protect yourself from forgetting what you learn.

By looking at this method, you can see that each time you revise the material the time for the next revision increases. You can easily visualise this by looking at the forgetting curve.

You can see a good example of the forgetting curve here.

After the last revision, there are 2 different things I recommend doing depending on your situation

1) The material you are studying is just for one test and doesn’t have much use outside that.

Firstly, confirm that what you are studying really has little use outside of the test. If that is the case, then you can revise the material every week or so, until you get to the the week of the test. Spend a bit more time(or a lot more, if that is what you want) revising the material the last few days before the test and you should get excellent results.

2) The material you are studying is really important and will be useful in the future.

In this case, you will have to revise the material as long as it is needed, so good luck….

Jokes aside, you will have to revise the material from time to time to make sure you do not forget it. There is a way to make it easier and that is to fully understand what you are reading. Not just understand what it means, but how it interacts with the other material you are studying.

If you can explain it to a 5-year-old, then you can say that you fully understood the material.

If that is too hard to imagine, first imagine explaining it to one of your classmates and if he can understand it you are on the right track.

If you can understand it, you will always be able to remember the key concepts. With that, you can always explain the material in a few sentences. If you need to remember smaller details(for some event for example) you can go through the same question as you would if you study for an exam.

Even then, I would still go through all the important questions every 1-2 months to make sure I am on top of my game, but that’s just me. You may find that you don’t need that, or that you want to revise every month.

Test yourself and see what works best!

If you want to make all of this questioning and revision easier, you can use flashcards. The easiest way to use them is through some app(everything has an app these days). I recommend using Anki:

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Just make flashcards by putting the question on one side and the answer on the other. Many people already use anki so you can search for decks of flashcards that somebody already made and use that one instead of making your own.

Anki already accounts for the forgetting curve and has an inbuilt system to remind you to revise your cards(you can even customize the time for your revision, which is what I recommend you do).

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Remember:

Read the material and ask yourself questions about what you read.

The next time you revise start with questions and then read through what you do not remember.

Repeat this process in line with the forgetting curve for as long as you need it.

If you need to remember something for the long term, make sure to completely understand it.