How much do you forget after you learn something?
You don't have to answer. I already know. It's a lot.
And I don't even know when it was that you last took a training, or read a book, or listened to a podcast that taught you something. I just know that whatever it was, you're probably forgetting more of it than you'd like to.
So today I want to give you four things you can do to help you remember more and forget less about the stuff you've been learning.
Focus on the Key Points
If it's a short video, that's easy enough. But if it's a book, or a one-hour, two-hour, or full-day training session, you can't remember it all. So what are the key points that matter most to you? You have to figure that out first.
Make it Findable
You may be writing it down. You may be putting it in your computer. But what you can't do is put the workbook on a shelf, because that's not really findable. Chances are your "findable" looks something digital, because then you can get back to it when you need to.
Use Spaced Repetition
This is what you did when you were studying for stuff in school. You went over it, and then you went over it again, and then again. Used to be, when I was teaching workshops people traveled to, I'd tell them: the best thing you can do tomorrow on your trip home is spend some time going through your notes. Spaced repetition. Then do it again a few days later.
So you've focused on the key points, you've made them findable, and now you just review them every once in a while. It doesn't have to be a study session. It's just a quick review, and that spaced repetition helps you remember.
Have a Learning Partner
This might feel like an individual exercise, but a big part of remembering is having someone to remember with. This is one of the things book clubs give us — we've all read the same book, so we get to have conversations about it. A learning partner can help us remember the key things, and they can be a kind of accountability partner too.
If you do those four things — focus on the key points, make them findable, review them regularly, and have a learning partner — you're going to forget less about the most important things you learn.
There's an organizational component here too. If you want people in your training to actually remember what you trained them on, why not teach them these same simple approaches? That might be the best training investment you make this year.
If we know we're going to forget the things we learn, let's have a plan for remembering the most important parts.
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