I just note things everyday and I grep interesting bits, using n.py: https://git.bitmycode.com/sodimel/n
Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#32[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#33I have a "trick". My native language is not english. 99.9% of what i read is in english. Comprehension for me is also slow when just reading(at least once). Memory, as i found out, works if you connect new knowledge to existing knowledge. Usually, when i read and understand something to the point of the "aha" moment is not sufficient. Just understanding something in that moment is not enough for storing in long term…
To retain facts and terminology, do you simply translate to native language to retain it?
This is a good question. Facts still fall under the context. Think about 1989 as a date - you know a lot of facts around that date. Think now of 1986(Chernobyl) - you also know a some facts about this date. 1504 - not so much(i assume). 2006?
The point is that you can also retain facts if you can connect them to something else. The more link you have the easier it is to retain.
For terminology - this is tricky. Whenever i run into some new terms that i cannot explain into something else, but need to learn the term, i try to use it in written text as much as i can. But whenever i try to refer to it, i refer to it from the explanation - hoping it(brain) will bring me the term. If i use it a lot, it will get cemented.
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#34One of the most successful methods I've found for me is to rewrite the material. I haven't seen anyone suggest this yet. By rewriting the material, you are recoding it. You are forcing yourself to think about the information differently: what you are doing is explaining it to yourself. This to me is far more effective than something like highlighting, because in rewriting that material, you are also clarifying your u…
Ben Franklin did something similar, he copied books by hand I think
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#35One of the most successful methods I've found for me is to rewrite the material. I haven't seen anyone suggest this yet. By rewriting the material, you are recoding it. You are forcing yourself to think about the information differently: what you are doing is explaining it to yourself. This to me is far more effective than something like highlighting, because in rewriting that material, you are also clarifying your u…
Very much this for me. It's the reason I wrote notes instead of typed them in college. The intention was never to use the note for reference, but the act of writing them enforces your memory.
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#36I have been using this: https://app.getsuperpower.com/quick-start
...its a mix between notes and spaced repetition
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#37Maybe your mind cannot be applied this way. I recognize you are being proactive by asking here, but the people you are competing against do not have this problem.
Is there some kind of a study that people can use to benchmark their finance textbook remembering ability? Because after factoring in a small amount of exaggeration in "might as well not have read it," forgetting a substantial fraction of a million facts, all of which the reader found boring, after two months with no reinforcement, sounds kind of plausible.
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#38People are giving app suggestions (supermemo, Anki), which is great, but the underlying concept is "spaced repetition" [0]. Tools like Anki (and supermemo, I presume) give you flash cards at an interval based on the spaced repetition idea. Our memory is structured so that we forget things at an exponential rate (exp(-a t)). The better we remember things, the smaller the coefficient (a). You can look around for pictur…
One of the best articles on SRS out there:
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#39I study by writing a summary of the material that I'm studying. If the material is very comprehensive I do a summary of the summary. The shortest summary is the only material that I review before the exam. For example, if I had to study a whole book, I would write a long summary first, and then a second, shorter one. This technique works because first you have to go through all the material and understand it, and second everything you write down tends to be remembered much better than if you just read it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?
#40> But when I return to the material a few months later, I may as well re-read the whole thing for the amount of detail I've retained.
I am trying to solve this particular issue in online learning. You may read a lot of books and watch quite a number of videos, but after few weeks or months, you remember zilch. Things are different when you are learning and applying, for instance, trying out a new framework or programming langauge library. However, most of the things are not really straightforward to "apply and understand".
You are always going to forget, no matter what. The real question is can you recover (faster) and retrace whatever you have learned. Think about stuffs you read up in high school or universities or colleges. How much of it is you can recollect? Can you "recover" what you have learned and "resume" from the point you left?
My solution is creating a conversational learning medium. Users are forced to respond to write their own inputs and observations. These inputs then act as "memory breadcrumbs" for you to retrace when you again come back later on. And then you can resume or update your mental models/abstractions about the topic.
I have written a comics-based essay on this topic: https://primerlabs.io/comics/memory-breadcrumbs-comics/
It took time for me to get it right, because of my perfectionism issues. There are two free courses right now: Python-I and Fundamentals of Computing.
The features of the platform are:
- Automatically generates flashcards which you can export as Anki
- Generate a personalized Book after completion
- Retrace Mode to retrace whatever you have learned
If anyone wants to try out conversational learning medium, you can use it at https://primerlabs.io/ ( No Signup Required Whatsoever).