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A system to help you remember more of what you read

robertheaton.com

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Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#41

Post by danial »

emilga wrote: post #35
danial wrote: post #32

I only record facts that I read in non-fiction (the mark-as-Q method from the article). I highlight them in Kindle while reading ebooks. I then transfer them into Anki flashcards after I'm done reading it. I don't highlight analysis and commentary. I don't highlight how the author reached a certain conclusion, just the end result. Some examples of what I am highlighting while reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins:…

Just a suggestion: If you download Kindle Mate (kmate.me), you can import your Kindle highlights to your PC and export them as a text file. Then you could make a script that parses this file line by line and saves it as a csv-file. Then use Anki csv-import. EDIT: fixed the link.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, kmate.me is PC only and I'm on a mac.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#42

Post by allworknoplay »

I find that simply sitting and thinking while -- and after -- reading nonfiction (or fiction, if it's got good ideas) burns the facts and ideas in as well as anything. I don't think most people allow as much time for reflection and mind-wandering as they ought to; expecting yourself to remember fact after fact without taking time to really absorb, reflect, and expand on them doesn't seem realistic.

It's not unlike a memory palace -- rather than just read the fact, think on it, expand on it and give it context and a place to live in your brain.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#43

Post by erfzsven »

it's unnecessary to remember the whole book just for explaining it to someone what you've read. that isn't worth another 4 hours.

for a non-professional book, it's the idea behind the story or the art of writing or both, that values. if you can't explain what you've read, i think it's most likely you haven't catch the main idea of the story rather than the story itself.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#44

Post by obscura »

To digress from the main point: the suggestion of writing in (physical) books makes me cringe. Once you do so, they become absolutely worthless to anyone but you. Trying reading a book that someone else has underlined and/or annotated - it's highly distracting and annoying.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#45

Post by dragonwriter »

obscura wrote: post #44

To digress from the main point: the suggestion of writing in (physical) books makes me cringe. Once you do so, they become absolutely worthless to anyone but you. Trying reading a book that someone else has underlined and/or annotated - it's highly distracting and annoying.

That an approach minimizes utility to others of an instrument it uses does not rebut the idea that it is a valid means of maximizing utility for you.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#46

Post by SloopJon »

Can anyone recommend software to help generate quizzes, preferably with a spaced repetition component? So, instead of a single card that associates "agua" with "water", a set of cards like "____ es mojada" or "vaso de ____ fría". It might have a multiple choice interface where the order of the choices varies, and maybe the wrong choices vary as well.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#48

Post by elboru »

laurieg wrote: post #19

Here's a slightly silly way to keep your brain switched on while reading: Set an alarm to go off every few minutes. When the alarm goes off shut the book and summarise what you read in the past few minutes. Writing it down helps keep you honest (if you do it in your head its very easy to fool yourself). After you summarise start reading again. Forcing yourself to practice recall helps memory. Being interrupted helps…

Interesting, where did you learn that interruptions help memory? I would like to read about it a little more.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#49

Post by mistersquid »

obscura wrote: post #44

To digress from the main point: the suggestion of writing in (physical) books makes me cringe. Once you do so, they become absolutely worthless to anyone but you. Trying reading a book that someone else has underlined and/or annotated - it's highly distracting and annoying.

I used to be a professor of American Literature. I literally owned thousands of books in the margins of which I wrote copious notes for research and teaching.

When I left academia to move cross country, I had a yard sale and at the end of the day a few hundred books were left over.

A young man who had come by earlier still had some interest in the books and so I bequeathed them to him.

Then I moved cross country.

Over five years later, I received a FB message from someone who asked if I had ever taught English in Ohio, and I confirmed that I had.

He replied he wanted to thank me because he was the recipient of those books. He was a Ph.D. student in Math and he read many of the books he got from me and said he learned so much about literature and writing that he never would have as a result of the notes in my margin.

I was humbled that he found my scrawlings worth reading and even more humbled he was able to learn something from them. I honestly think his intelligence was the real key driving his learning, but I am beyond grateful that whatever notes I left in the margins of those books provided enough information to encourage a self-motivated learner to think deeply about the works he was reading.

So while some may find annotations distracting and annoying, there are some that can find those same annotations to be pointers to a fuller understanding of the material so annotated.

EDIT: Change "and" to "to be" in last sentence.

Re: A system to help you remember more of what you read

#50

Post by wst_ »

danial wrote: post #32

I only record facts that I read in non-fiction (the mark-as-Q method from the article). I highlight them in Kindle while reading ebooks. I then transfer them into Anki flashcards after I'm done reading it. I don't highlight analysis and commentary. I don't highlight how the author reached a certain conclusion, just the end result. Some examples of what I am highlighting while reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins:…

> I wish there was a good way to transfer these highlights from my Kindle into Anki flashcards automatically

Wouldn't the result be actually opposite from anticipated? It's exactly writing about the stuff by yourself a way for remembering it. It won't stick if you just automate the process. Or rather it will, for long enough to deceive you into thinking you know it, but you'd probably forget it after a while anyway. Writing anything by yourself, or ideally handwriting, makes it stick. At least it works for me. I spoke with some friends of mine and this system seems to work for them, either.

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