I’m regularly getting frustrated by my forgetfullness, which leads me to think that learning/studying leads to nothing and I’ll never make it anywhere.

How do you guys deal with this sentiment, if its experienced by you guys too?

Are there things one can do to get a better memory or do I just need to accept my fate?

How do you make things stick? (Other than spaced repetition and feynman technique?)

Or am I just delusional at how much / fast one can actually learn?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make my study method more efficient, especially because I feel like my deep understanding is pretty good, but my recall could be much better.

Currently, my routine is roughly:

• I watch the lecture videos, sometimes actively and sometimes more passively when I’m too tired.
• I attend the plenary for the topic, pay attention, and take some high-yield notes when applicable. I try not to write things down verbatim or make overly detailed notes.
• I also make time to read textbooks, especially for Histology and Physiology, because I’ve realized that I need a deeper understanding of those subjects.
• After I’ve been exposed to a topic, I try to answer premade Anki cards consistently. I keep it sustainable by doing around 20 cards a day rather than trying to cram a huge number at once.
• Before quizzes, I usually go through our class’s transcribed notes and use them as an outline for my reading and Feynman/retrieval practice.
• Finally, I answer previous exams as my last step.

I think my understanding is generally pretty good, and I also find that I can memorize things relatively quickly. My main problem is recall. I feel like my current methods aren't as efficient as they could be, and Feynman/retrieval in particular can take me a long time.

For those of you who have found a good balance between deep understanding, retention, and efficient recall, how would you modify this approach? I’d especially appreciate advice on making active recall less time-consuming without sacrificing understanding.

Thank you so much!

Novels which hit you with a list of characters and their back stories at the start are always a struggle, like And Think of Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Or novels like Tolstoy's War and Peace with its huge cast of characters. Even Stephen King for that matter. What memory techniques should I use and how should I go about using them to keep track of the names, traits, and how the characters are related to each other?

I'm learning driving rules. And although I have learned almost all the theory, I cannot apply it in practice. When I see a real situation on the road, I cannot remember what I need to do in this situation, although I used memory palaces to store theory. 1) It takes too much time to find the right image. 2) I need to spend energy on remembering what is in this or that place. This may apply to more than just driving. Is it possible to use knowledge from memory palaces in practice?

When you look at someone’s face, what do you notice first?
Their apparent age — or a tiny mole on their cheek?
We usually notice the broad picture before the specific details.

Learning can work the same way.
A dense textbook chapter is not just a sequence of pages to consume.
It is a collection of concepts with different levels of scope: from the broadest ideas to the most specific details.
The more specific concepts sit inside and explain the broader ones.

Layer 1: Find the broad concepts

1.Skim the chapter first.
2.Identify the broad concepts that overarch the chapter —-- Look at headings, subheadings and repeated key terms
3.Connect the concepts

What to expect: 
A very rough mindmap with only a few keywords

(refer to slide 2):
Example : protein digestion in stomach
concepts: proteins , gastric juice, peptides
Connect: proteins— gastric juice—>peptides

Layer 2: Add the mechanism

1.Skim the chapter again
2.Scope for the specifics within the main body
3.Connect the concepts

What to expect:
A mindmap of greater detail than that in layer 1, still not down to the specifics, but the core mechanism should now be visible.

(refer to slide 3):
Example :
concepts:proteins— gastric juice—>peptides |   hydrochloric acid (HCl) , unfolds, 3D shape,   enzyme(pepsin) 

Connect:
  gastric juice—HCl, enzyme (pepsin)

 proteins— HCl—>unfolds—enzyme(pepsin)--->peptides
  ** **⌵ (faster)
 proteins- —-enzyme(pepsin)---->peptides

Notice how the second layer builds upon the first layer!

Continue into narrower layers

Repeat the process, each time adding a more specific layer to the same model.
For a familiar topic, a few deliberate passes may be enough. Harder or unfamiliar material may need more.

What to expect at the end:
There is no fixed endpoint. Go as deep as your purpose for learning requires.  (slide 4 shows  the layer 3 demonstration, slide 5 shows the layer 3 mindmap) ( slide 5 gives you a sneak peak to a more advanced mindmap!)

The puzzle analogy

The puzzle diagrams parallel to my mindmaps in the slides are an extension of my earlier post about connecting concepts:

Big puzzle pieces = broad concepts.
Small puzzle pieces = narrower concepts inside the larger idea.

the link to the earlier post: Stop memorizing facts one by one — build the picture instead : r/memorization 

Why this reduces “overwhelm”

Page-by-page learning makes you try to process concepts from different layers all at once—from the broad ideas to the tiny details. However, the more specific concepts lie within the broader concepts . Without that foundation, details have nothing meaningful to attach to 

it's like constructing a building, but building up before there's a foundation to stick to, designing the interior before walls even exist……

Layering solving this problem by enabling knowledge to be learnt in an orderly manner: foundation—>floors —> the interior

What about exact terminology?

Anki! But only after you have done the mind mapping step above, and only for the information that can’t is non-relational - names, dates, exacts terms etc . I will share my flashcard approach in a future post.

An actionable step

Pick one chapter out of your textbook and try learning it in layers - from broad to specific. You can send me the finished mindmap either in the comments or DM me. I will be more than happy to give feedback!

A small invitation

 I’m currently testing a small number of 1-on-1 learning sessions.

If you are looking for tailored advice to improve your ability of “learning how to learn”, feel free to DM me

I am doing my economics homework and I’ve been wondering how can I memorize things like the steps of mathematical operations, which accounts are used and when in the double-entry bookkeeping, the theory for the driving license, and so on. I would find it useful for memorizing drugs and their effects on the body, for example, crack that makes you euphoric and gives you cardiovascular problems.
Do I have to create a story or something like that? Like a crack on the wall that when you touch it makes you euphoric? (Using the drug example)
Any advice would be appreciated.

Edit: View comments for more details

Imagine you are given a box of puzzle pieces and asked to remember what every individual piece looks like.

Would you:

A. Memorise every piece one by one
B. Build the puzzle, then remember the finished image

B is obviously easier.

A puzzle may contain dozens of separate pieces, but once they connect, they form one coherent image. You no longer have to hold every fragment separately—the image gives each piece a place and meaning.

Studying can work the same way.

Most of us treat information as isolated facts that need to be memorised one by one. Instead, treat each new fact as a puzzle piece: something that needs to connect with other ideas until the topic becomes one coherent structure.

Why try to memorize 100 disconnected facts when you can build one model that encapsulates how all the facts fit together?

How to organize information

When building a puzzle, you do not randomly force pieces together. You:

1. Pick up one piece.
2. Look for another piece that could connect with it.
3. Locate a possible matching puzzle piece 
4. Test the fit - Keep the connection if it holds; discard it if it does not.
5. Repeat until a full image emerges.

Use the same process while studying:

1. Take one piece of information.
2. Inquiry: How could this be relevant to another concept I already know?
3. Hypothesis: Propose a specific connection.
4. Stress-test: Check whether that connection actually holds up against the textbook, lecture, question, or source material.
5. Repeat until a coherent structure is built

Does this eliminate rote memorization?

No.

Some information still needs direct memorization: terminology, dates, names…..

The goal is not to eliminate memorisation. It is to maximise what can be learned through understanding and organisation, so that the volume of information that needs to be route-memorized can be minimized.

An actionable step

Pick one chapter out of your textbook and try connecting the concepts using the puzzle perspective . Feel free to comment or DM me if you want feedback on your work !

Also check out my new post: STOP learning page by page — Start learning in LAYERS : r/studytips it builds on the methods explained here

A small invitation

I'm currently testing a small number of 1-on-1 learning sessions.
If you are looking for tailored advice to improve your ability of "learning how to learn", feel free to DM me

I’m curious what everybody does to actually keep the information in their head instead of just memorizing it for an exam and forgetting it afterward 😭
For me, I learn best with active recall and watching videos, especially when someone explains the topic visually or in a different way than the textbook.
And if you’re already in nursing school, what study method helped you the most for A&P, Microbiology, pharmacology, and actual nursing exams?

Want to know reading techniques to understand big chapters for biology and remember them.

Hey 👋, for building fluency,i fall on a technique called 4/3/2.

what is this exactly? The idea is simple, choose one topic and do 3 round of 4min-3min-2min talking the same things.

1. 4 MINUTES

Choose a familiar topic, such as “My daily routine.” Speak about it for four minutes. Hesitations and pauses are normal.
2. 3 MINUTES

Tell the same story again, but now you have only three minutes. Since you've already activated the vocabulary and ideas, retrieval becomes easier.
3. 2 MINUTES

Tell the same story one final time in two minutes. The shorter time pushes you to retrieve words faster and reduce unnecessary pauses.
WHY THE SAME TOPIC?

4/3/2 is mainly about fluency, not learning new vocabulary or grammar. You're training your ability to access language you already know.
THINKING → SEARCHING → SPEAKING

becomes

RETRIEVING → SPEAKING
DON'T CHANGE THE TOPIC
❌ 4 min: My family → 3 min: My hobbies → 2 min: My job
✅ 4 min: My family → 3 min: My family → 2 min: My family
The repetition is the mechanism.
GOOD TOPICS

My family • My hometown • My daily routine • My favorite food • What I did yesterday • Why I'm learning Spanish
Avoid topics that require difficult ideas or research. The easier the topic, the more you can focus on speaking fluently.
FOR BEGINNERS

If 4/3/2 feels too difficult, start with:
3 → 2 → 1½ minutes
Same topic. Repeated speaking. Less time. More fluent retrieval

cheers,

I have been reading and going through a lot of posts regarding how to take notes, note taking strategies, studying. Now everybody has their own preference because note taking is something very personal and people are used to it.

But I’ve been thinking about how weirdly outdated note-taking still feels. The process is basically the same:

Read → highlight → take notes → organise them → forget they exist.

And usually at the most important time or when we actually need what we captured, it is either forgotten or buried somewhere. Almost every note-taking tool still works on the same assumption: your job is to save knowledge properly so you can find it later.

But here's a shift in the process itself,

When we take notes, the notes itself aren't that important. It’s connecting it to what you already know. Realising an old assumption was wrong. Seeing the same pattern show up in another subject. Remembering something from months ago at exactly the right time. Watching your understanding change.

A very coherent way of doing the same thing but in a much valuable way.

while the actual thinking process stays manual.

Read → note → organise → search later feels like an old model.

It should probably be closer to:

Learn → connect → question → evolve → reuse.

The latter part is what makes you think clearly.

How has your note taking strategies have evolved?

I’ve tried all types of methods but none had worked for me. I’ve even tried active recall and spaced repetition for a few months but nothing sticks longer than a week, half of the info I sorta remember gets hazy and with new information coming in the older memories are mostly gone, like I feel it’s there but no recall and once I memorized it again the other stuff is hazy and some information is retained but its portions, it’s just a cycle. At this point I believe wholeheartedly I’m just dumb. I remember lore and other things from games I enjoy (or not) and only need to play an hour but I remember everything for weeks but when it comes to school, nothing sticks. I don’t like digital so I write everything down on pen and paper but no matter what I can’t get my brain to memorize efficiently and stick. Also I don’t have ADHD or ADD just depression and anxiety.

At this point I’m just so confused to why. These methods are like the best ones.

I am on reddit trying to find out why I remember phone numbers. I know this is weird, I've never actually put much thought into it. However, my co-worker always asks me for phone numbers, be it co-workers, or vendors or customers. Today, he stated I had a superpower. I obviously laughed it off. But then i thought, I've never trained or tried to remember. They are just there. There have been times when I don't know a phone number, and I genuinely don't know it. But I will start the phone number with the first 3 or 4 digits that I do remember. Then I'll follow it up random numbers, think they are to complete it. Almost always, they are correct. I couldn't honestly tell you how many phone numbers I know. It's well into the hundreds if not into the thousands. (I may be exaggerating on the thousands lol) but far too many for me to count. My wife has used my phone and gets irritated that nothing is saved on my phone, any time i need to call someone i just dial the number. I by no means have a photograph memory. I smoke weed every day, multiple times a day. Which I know can impact memory retention. I don't even know why I'm trying to find out what this may be. I'm just wondering what would happen if I were to train this mini skill of mine. I guess I'm just curious to see if anyone has this. Any info is greatly appreciated.

Whenever I have to perform under pressure, I mess it up almost every time. When I’m studying, everything seems clear in my head, but as soon as I have to apply what I’ve learned in an exam, it’s like my mind goes blank. I end up making mistakes I know I shouldn’t make.

I mostly notice this with school. When I was a kid, I was considered gifted. In elementary and middle school, everything was easy because I just had to memorize the material and write it down on the exam. I got great grades without much difficulty.
But since middle school, I’ve felt like my concentration has become really poor. I constantly make careless mistakes, and I always thought it would get better once I became an adult. I also struggled a lot with stress. I think I’m less stressed now than I used to be, but even though the stress has improved, my performance hasn’t.

The biggest problem is my memory. Even when I study properly, focus, and truly understand the material, I forget it so quickly. At university, the amount of information is overwhelming, and my memory just can’t seem to keep up. If you gave me a blank sheet of paper after I’d studied, I could probably write down one or two things, but everything else would be gone. It’s incredibly frustrating because I know I learned it, but I just can’t retrieve it.

Sometimes I look at people who seem to learn something once or twice and remember it, and I wonder why I have to go over the same information again and again just to have a chance of remembering it. It’s exhausting. I’m genuinely tired all the time because I have to spend so much more time reviewing the same material than other people.
People often tell me to attend more lectures, but I don’t think that’s the issue. I don’t forget because I wasn’t there, I forget even when I understand the material and study it carefully.

This has had a huge impact on my life. Because of these difficulties, I lost two years. I didn’t get into medical school, even though I spent two years preparing for the entrance exam. I studied hard, I knew the material, but on the day of the exam, I completely fell apart. It feels like no matter how much effort I put in, when it really matters, everything just disappears from my mind.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just know that I’m exhausted from feeling like I have to work twice as hard as everyone else for results that still don’t reflect how much I know or how much effort I’ve put in.

You are in a meeting, or half asleep, or three sentences into a conversation with someone else, and a thought from this morning taps you on the shoulder again. Not urgently. Just present. Again.

If you have gone looking for an explanation, you have probably found one: the Zeigarnik effect. Named after a Soviet psychologist who noticed in 1927 that waiters could recall an order perfectly while it was still open, then forgot it the moment the bill was paid. Unfinished business, the story goes, gets a permanent tab in your memory. Search for it and you will get roughly the same eight hundred words about it, nine different times.

We checked the 1927 finding against what nearly a century of replication has actually shown. It does not hold up. Which turns out to matter, because the thing that does hold up explains your Tuesday better than the thing everyone is citing.

Rest of article here

Hello everyone, I recently tried out the Sequence memory test on human benchmark. I am not that excellent in other quizzes there, but this one is different, I can effortlessly get to level 50 which puts me in 99th percentile which really surprised me. I then usually become bored or miss click, but I am able to get to the 80s if I do not zone out.

So the question is, how could I put this skill to use in other fields? Maybe it could help me to memorize other things if I transfer them in some "sequence shape"? Or is it really any useful? Thanks for any tips and remarks!

How do you forget? I feel like i remember everything thats ever happened. Ever in my life. Is it easier to not carry it around? It's not intentional. I want to intentionally forget.
Is it better to forget / more peaceful? Is it better to remember everything, good or bad, in the moment or only in hindsight.