So what can you do if you need remember something important? Adam Grant took a deep dive into memory research to found a simple answer. (Adam is an organizational psychologist, best-selling author, host of the superb podcast WorkLife, co-founder of Givitas, and nice enough to provide a blurb for my book.)
Learning ability is probably the most important skill you can have. Take it from Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel, authors of " Make It Stick: The Science Of Successful Learning." "We need to keep learning and remembering all our lives," they write.
Retrieval is so effective is that it strengthens the neural pathways associated with a given concept.
When you're attempting to recall an idea, method, or technique from memory, you're retrieving. Flash cards are a great example: They force you to recall an idea from memory, unlike a technique like highlighting where you're not burning anything into your brain.
When you try to put a new idea into your own words, you're elaborating.
For example, if you're in physics class and trying to understand heat transfer, try to tie the concept into your real-life experiences, say, by imagining how a warm cup of coffee disperses heat into your hands.
You go to the gym to train your muscles. You run outside or go for hikes to train your endurance. Or, maybe you do neither of those, but still wish you exercised more. Well, here is how to train one of the most important parts of your body: Your brain.
Learners proficient in fast-paced games are significantly faster at performing new cognitive tasks.
By pretending you are teaching something to someone using simple language, you understand it better.
Bilingual people may have a leg up when it comes to understanding new things and processing information, regardless of the learned language.
Learning new material right before sleeping provides a significant retention advantage.
Establishing as many connections as possible is an effective way to learn, and the best way to do that is to relate new information to known information.
The brain processes visual information faster than text. Include relevant visuals (charts, symbols, diagrams…) with learning materials to improve retention.