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Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#61

Post by gremloni »

reciprocity wrote: post #21

One 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…

I can vouch for this. I just gave an SDE a bad performance review because he could never recall any code he worked on or how it worked…

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#62

Post by [deleted] »

Veen wrote: post #12

I tend not to memorize in that way. Reading gives me a basic familiarity with a topic and, more importantly, helps me understand where to find information when I need it. If I use a piece of technical information regularly, I'll just keep looking it up until exposure fixes it in my memory. However, if it's something I do need to remember and can't look up, spaced repetition tools like Anki are helpful. You should pro…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#63

Post by gremloni »

vubui wrote: post #43

You can't forget something if you understood it. A concept is internalized when one understood the concept. Techniques to memorize something is not effective. Even worse techniques are glorified. Then one spends a lifetime polishing the techniques to memorize what they wanted to internalize in the first place. It's a trap. Want to memorize something? Try to really understand what's going on. You cannot forget somethi…

I feel like this has been said a lot and only works in very specific disciplines like physics and maybe math. Just grasping concepts isn’t always sufficient and memorization is underestimated.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#64

Post by flashgordon »

gremloni wrote: post #61
reciprocity wrote: post #21

One 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…

I can vouch for this. I just gave an SDE a bad performance review because he could never recall any code he worked on or how it worked…

I wasn't sure so had to ask. Where you making a joke? Did the sde have actual measurable perf problems?

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#65

Post by gremloni »

flashgordon wrote: post #64
gremloni wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can vouch for this. I just gave an SDE a bad performance review because he could never recall any code he worked on or how it worked…

I wasn't sure so had to ask. Where you making a joke? Did the sde have actual measurable perf problems?

The lack of recall led to severe perf problems. He had a hard time fixing bugs quickly on code he had written. A significant change from the past, I presume he has started smoking a lot of weed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#66

Post by zoomablemind »

> How do you memorize things you read?

Memorizing short-term is relatively easier, provided there's sufficient comprehension and, well, ... association memory.

However, to retain some new knowledge, even just concepts, for a longer term and having it ready on-demand for me is very much dependent on how relevant such knowledge is to my present state of "know".

If the new concepts are too detached, even if I do grock them now, the only thing that would stay for long term is some feel of familiarity. Actively refreshing such knowledge is often impractical, as long as it remains not relevant to life. There are always tons of new topics to discover!

So, basically, for me some new knowledge retains long-term when it's made relevant in life or directly extends some already relevant knowledge.

No shame in forgetting, just know where to find it again or whom to ask. It's not futile however, as in encountering new concepts, sometimes an extension from known concepts grows naturally, kind of further forming the worldview. Good terminology helps a lot in connecting and retaining the dots.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#67

Post by flashgordon »

gremloni wrote: post #65
flashgordon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't sure so had to ask. Where you making a joke? Did the sde have actual measurable perf problems?

The lack of recall led to severe perf problems. He had a hard time fixing bugs quickly on code he had written. A significant change from the past, I presume he has started smoking a lot of weed.

Yeah that is sad. Software engineering for the most part has become "standardized" and it is unfortunate this individual either missed the boat on the upskilling or just ran out of steam/luck from what may have been (possibly successful) cowboy coding days!

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#69

Post by jason_slack »

efitz wrote: post #42

[ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition Spaced Repetition] (Wikipedia) Has everyone here has stated, Writing the information is a very effective way to reinforce your retention of it. You can make it even more effective by writing the information in the form of a flash card, and then using spaced repetition to reinforce the information until you have mastered it. There are a lot of good flash card applica…

I use spaced repetition for preparing for exams. It works quite well for me along with an active recall notebook that I can easily read through many times a day.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#70

Post by yesenadam »

Lots of good answers here already. In a lot of areas in life, the situation is like with man pages. The important thing to learn and remember is broadly what shell program/command you need to do the task at hand, what they can do. You can look up the exact option/format details in the man page as needed. There's not much point trying to memorize every last detail, most of which you will never use.
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