[throwawaynay]

I think the only way to really learn is to do. So I'll skim through the content first without trying to retain knowledge

then I ask myself, is there anything interesting I can build involving this concept? or any useful activity I can do?

and I try to build it or do it, while using multiple sources of knowledge, but I never try to just remember stuff, the brain naturally remember the pieces of the knowledge that were actually needed the most while practicing. you don't know what's important to remember until you practiced, so in the end if you try to just retain knowledge you remember very badly a lot of things, but if you practice really early you remember very well what was actually important