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I've wondered/worried about this, too. A book I promote is Make It Stick: the science of successful learning (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel, 2014), and the highlights I remember are: Quiz yourself about what you just read, because effortful recall is effective at making long-term memories Spaced repetition works (Leitner box, Anki, etc) Interleaved practice feels less effective during practice but leads to quicker learning, if working on more than one thing I don't worry about this much anymore, instead trusting myself to remember the actually important things. If it wasn't important I didn't remember it, yeah? I find pausing while reading and holding up (in my imagination) the tidbit or idea or concept and spending aome time with it, perhaps even visualizing tying it into existing understanding. Play around with it, and relax. At the end of the day you just need to eat, hydrate, be warm enough, have a sense of purpose, love and be loved. |
When reading a paper book, I use underlining for individual sentences I want to remember and an extended bracket for a paragraph I want to remember.
Next to the underlined or bracketed text, I'll add a checkmark, star, heart, or exclamation point.
The checkmark means it's worth remembering. The star means it's really worth remembering. The heart means it's something I already know and love to see again. The exclamation point means it's funny or surprising, though I don't necessarily need to remember it.
When I finish the book, I review all the text that's been marked. This helps me remember what's meaningful to me.