How To Remember Everything You Learn 

Great Video!

"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." -Epictetus

"I have a big brain" "Does that mean you're smarter?" "No, I'm stupid faster."

"...our bias towards novelty is strong, and forces us towards the trivial, rather than the essential." Felt that.🖤❤️

I can’t believe this video is 4 years old & I’m just now seeing it. This resonates so highly with me & is by far the best video hands down that I’ve ever come across! My understanding has been transcended! Thank you 🙏

I came here for a learning tip, came out with a new approach to life.

"I tricked myself into thinking I was competent" story of my life

Excellent video. It affected me in a positive way, to realize even more how much damage social media are causing to our brains. An addiction for brain destruction.

Interesting to hear that there is a name for my learning technique. My mother taught me that you know you understand something when you can explain it to someone else. Now I know that's called the Feynman technique. I've always done this. When I was in school, studying for something and even now that I'm in university, I still call up my mom and explain whatever advanced mathematics concept I'm learning to her, so I can be sure I understand it myself.

"Tell me and I'll forget, Show me and I'll remember, Involve me and I'll learn." A useful quote for all, especially anyone who has to plan lessons or training.

This is an insecurity that has plagued me for years. You're brave for sharing your downfalls. Thank you.

The value of understanding your opponent's views cannot be overstated.

This was really useful. I have been constantly suffering from information retention. The methods explained in the video can be a bit difficult for me as I get distracted very easily.. but I'll definitely try it out. Thank you!

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself" - Albert Einstein

Some advice for learning 1. Recall within the first 30 seconds of learning something 2. Feymann technique, use what you have learned so you can express it to a 5 year old 3. Use mental repetition, your brain is a muscle, use your time wisely to wire your neurones to be able to effectively remember max capacity. Some extra tips - Don’t try to focus on many things, just one - Don’t try remember everything, understand the use of Quality information over quantity - Develop intellectual humility. Understand and detach from your perspectives to learn others to gain a better understanding. -> fight/argument to find peace

I feel your pain sir, I'm an overthinker. To know anything I can throw most of a day away in the effort. While I was listening to this video I mused to myself that you probably come back to your video over and over to reference the information about knowing things 😁 Thank you for the video.

Recall: There are two types of memory , short term and long term , understanding lies in long term , and to reach to that part it has to go through short term and a phase working memory in which the information is quickly vanishes , if information survives in this part it'll make it to long term memory and to do it there are several techniques first technique is to whenever you do some learning do it in parts, don't try to overwhelm yourself by reading 2 pages if you can't recall them , the main thing to do is to recall it by closing the book and telling to your brain what you have read about and if you can't recall it just read it again with focus and you will see that now you can recall it , repeat this process over and over again with the content you consume daily , due to large stream of informations , it is impossible for our brain to focus that results in no grasp over any single information, so the best thing to do is to switch your phone off (unless you are consuming content on it xd ) and get rid of all t e distractions when you are consuming content, Now after this , here comes the second technique called feymann technique , in which you try to write down the explanation of what you have learned , and if you can not write an explanation of it, go back to the source and again try to repeat the process of recalling, and after you are successful in writing that explanation , simplify it down and get rid of difficult terms. Now you have to make analogies of this simpler version of your explanation , which means you have to implement in such a way that whenever you see or recall that analogy , the whole topic comes in to your mind, that's the goal of it. Now after this you will have pretty solid knowledge and to solidify it more you HAVE to make a schedule of a month, in which you re read the same damn book after three days and when the month is about to end, CRUSH it for 3 THREE consecutive days and now you know that you have become a better version of yourself. Thanks for reading this so far, i hope that i have summarized the video in a good manner as my practice of feymann technique xd, Cheers

So I have to watch the video again... SWEET

Little cheat sheet for myself in a simple manner: Focus on 1 thing Look away and think about it Write out a way of teaching it to someone else in a simple manner Redo, relearn, practice thought

Dude this is one of those rare masterpiece o youtube. The high quality editing to transmit the words and ideas your are tryingto make people understand.. just great man. Thank you so much for all that work. On top of that the 3 techniques given in it are actually reall really useful. I've used the look away and recall quickly what you just read, along with teaching it to somebody asap with great success, definitly increased my retension and mastery about subjects I was learning at a time.

What's scary is finding this video for the "first time" and seeing it's already liked......

The worst thing is that, when you’re in school/university, you have no choice but to follow a lot of tasks all together........maybe you’d like to spend a little more time on a particular subject to understand it fully but if you get showered with new tasks you need to get done, here comes the “cram everything into your brain” system.

Recall: 7:10 Feynman: 7:50 Spaced repetition: 8:50

I think I might have learned this stuff years ago somewhere else. The best part about knowing how the memory works, and detaching from biases can help actually learning. Learning the same thing helps strengthen your knowledge of it

Thanks! It's easy to feel alone and isolated with memory challenges. Great to know everyone struggles with the same thing.

7:05 1. Recall - after you read it - look away from material and try recall it 2. Feynman Technique - explain it to a 5 year old 3. Spaced Repetition - repeat for more myelination - Prioritize the essential - “Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not keep up with every damn thing in the world.”

"I cannot remember the books I've read more than the meals I've eaten, even so they have made me". -Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Seriously, one of the very best videos I have ever seen, and to which I can totally relate... A huge thank you !

I appreciate how well paced you were in speaking, it kept me engaged the entire time.

This is really relevant to me. I’ve been over-learning to feed my craving for knowledge, but I’m not really as smart as I think I am. Thanks for the great video!

This really explained what's happening to me recently. I love how you researched and framed all of this!

Great quality content!! It’s so relatable to what I’m experiencing in my years of studies. We’re so frequently forced to indulge vast amount of information without letting it sink in and have it stored to long term memory. What you gave is one of the best honest practical explanation and tips I’ve ever encountered!!

Don't mind me: ✓ 3 days gap in learning something (for a whole month) ✓ Read, Recall, Repeat ✓ Write it out like how you're teaching someone

These are some tips, they work for me. Maybe not for everyone. I've been reading a book a month so far this year (well I've made it to 6 books so far). 1. Mark up your books, take notes in the margins or underline/highlight things that stick out to you. 2. Stop reading and contemplate parts that you feel are important to you. Or are pivotal moments in the story. 3. Try to relate those pivotal moments to current events or state of affairs going on. Compare them to your own personal experience. 4. Takes notes on any profound thoughts you had while reading a chapter. Usually when chapters end, they only take up 1/4 or 1/2 of the page. Write a quick summary of that chapter on the blank part of that page. 5. Once you are done reading, immediately take out a notebook or open up Word, and write your opinions on what you read, while it's still fresh. Doesn't have to be anything fancy or written like a college report. Just WRITE! The last step has helped me immensely. I've made a folder and have written a short report (around 1000 words per book) and have gone back occasionally to add notes here and there from just thinking about the story weeks later. Or when talking to friends who have read the book as well, and made connections and critiques I hadn't thought of. This is a good skill to develop. It's help with listening, critical thinking and helps your writing. Win, win, win. Hope This Helps! Edit: Thank you for the wonderful responses. Yes, these are tips for beginners. I've noticed this method eventually bleeds over to mentally taking notes. Eventually you won't have to do EVERY step, but it builds the "muscle memory" in your brain to help with retaining information later on.

I'm just beginning to self-learn math and physics. And after half a lifetime of various issues, this is amazing advice. I spent the past day learning about Feynman! And as an ex-psychology major, I just want to say thank you so much!

my summary of memory techniques: 1. Recall - after you read it - look away from material and try recall it 2. Feynman Technique - explain it to a 5 year old 3. Spaced Repetition - repeat for more myelination also do remeber too look away and remeber any information you have just taken in. spending little as 30 seconds or less going over the main points will help you vastly understand it better after you watch some educationial videos and convert it into long term memory. the feynman technique is basicially chosing something you want to understand and write out an explanation of it as if it a person did not know the subject. it is also whenever you stuck go back to the material and re learn it then after you should be able to write about it without using the material source, simplify it by removing the technical wording, so that a child could get what your teaching. analogies connect complex idea with something more relatable. the spaced repetion is exactly what i know it is. focusing one thing at a time in learning would make it easier.

Your mind is NOT a computer, your mind is a muscle, so don't trust your memory! If you want something to get into your long-term memory instead of the short one, see if you can explain to yourself or someone the information you just acquired. If you cannot do, it simply means that you do not know it, so go again and re-watch or read it until you can explain it and it makes sense. We said the mind is a muscle so the more you learn, the more you learn. Quit multitasking and remove distractions so you can focus on quality over quantity. What i also do is, i use post-it notes, i write the very important things that i bump into through my day and i still stick them on my wall in my bedroom or somewhere around my desk so i can see them and read them often. They motivate me, they show to me that i am serious and i keep going to reach my goals. If you read this coment - Be Lengedary !

This, and your video on The Attention Economy should be required viewing for everyone who spends a lot of time on the internet. I think I struggle with wanting to be great at everything, knowledgeable on every subject, but there's just not enough time in the day to be amazing at everything. Man, I'll have to revisit this video many more times, thanks for this Will.

The best video I’ve watched in weeks. Thank you so much for showing us these techniques, I’ll now stop looking everywhere but focusing on one thing at a time and learn it forever

So I'm an artist, I do art, draw, and other things The one major concept that hits hard to me was the 'Spaced Repetition' and specifically "Spaced" because I tried to practice a lot and study the human anatomy that I draw every night, and because I was repeating things over and over again, I've gotten better BUT It led to me being burnt out because I didn't add spaces to those practices and didn't take a break from it If you wanna learn something quickly and in an efficient way, don't just repeat it over and over again, tale a break from the topic for a day or two and it will be better

This video really speaks to a problem I’ve been having; feeling like good ideas and information are “slipping away” despite countless meetings, discussions and brainstorming sessions. I remember HAVING good ideas to advance my life but they never “stick” and I’m left puzzled as to why nothing has changed. This got me thinking about using force of will to try and commit the best ideas to long-term memory instead of assuming my brain can act in my own best interest automatically. Thank you!

I’ve got strong feelings about this topic, but I don’t think I can express them. I know what I think about it, but I don’t think I can explain it. So, uh, nice video.

I greatly appreciate the work that has went into this video. Thank you Mr. Schoder

Thank you for this wonderful video! There's so much real wisdom packed into thirteen minutes here. I _feel_ like I understood it all, but it's obviously going to take a rewatch or two and some recall to really get the most from what you said.

This feels like a tutorial on life.

So basically In school, we are taught to just cram information and forget, damn :(

That is actually what I do as a Med Student. Thank you for sharing this info to the community.

I feel that some people may know something but do not know how to articulate it or convey it properly. There is also the anxiety that the pressure of "performing" when confronted with it in a social setting. Many times people leave a situation totally recalling valid points and thoughts afterwards. I don't think it it always applies but its something that this video left out. Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed watching this video.

You're telling me the 30-second ads between the videos i watch finally have a good purpose for my learning? This is the best news, man.

Feynman’s technique is: studying the thing you want to learn, then summarizing it as if you wanted to teach it to someone. Where you get stuck trying to explain it, you go back to learning about the subject to fill in the gaps in your knowledge! After you write down your explanation, eliminate things that are hard to understand until the final product could be explained to a child. This works because by explaining a complex topic simply, you know that you understand it and if you haven’t already committed the subject to long-term memory (by recalling the information later) you can repeat the process to solidify the memory, perhaps with spaced repetition.

When the student's ready , the master appears . A timely video for myself in a time of need . I have my electrical exams next week and was struggling to retain certain pockets of information . This should make the difference. Thank you

The Charlie Monger quote near the end is golden. Better to really understand a small amount of content than try to "know everything" that flies across your path.

*Watches the video* Sometime later... "What was that video about again?"

The problem is that I want to learn EVERYTHING. I think you are right, we need to focus on one thing to make the best of it.

As you read this, you are holding the access to vast knowledge in your hand. At 81 years, I appreciate this. A shame that the young squander it’s potential.

I like the expression “illusions of competence”. Our hearts are so deceitful.

I literally have to relearn everything that i've learned when learning something new because i end up forgetting and its frustrating because it feels like ive made no progress...

"Our brain is made to take 1 task at a time" *Hold my ADHD.*

I needed this video. This is a problem I've been struggling a lot with recently and I can relate to a lot of things he says. I appreciate the quality of the content and look forward to applying the methods taught in this video. Thanks a lot.

I have always naturally absorbed information & then imagined explaining it to someone else. It ALWAYS results in better understand & usually produces new insights. If I’m creating something, the act of explaining it, & explaining why i think something simpler won’t work, often allows me to discover how to MAKE it work.

Feynman technique simplified: 1. Take something you didn't understand 2. Explain what you know 3. Relearn if you don't know something. 4. Simplify it. *I'm awesome* oh wait that's an illusion..

I’ve struggled with autism my entire life, but Come to realize that it has helped me greatly with schematizing. I’m so hyper focused on 1 thing. When I learn something I feel like I can remember and generate it fully in conversation. It just takes getting over my trouble with social situations to be able to share it.

The editing on this is amazing, props for production quality.

03:06 Charlie Munger 03:56 How the memory works 04:45 Working memory 06:05 Multitasking 07:30 Practicing recall 07:51 The feynman technique 08:51 Spaced repetition 12:34 The shallows by Nicholas Carr

Thanks Will. I now know everything I need to know about how I don't really know what I think I know.

What’s funny is that I watched this video hoping it would help me retain things better. Then I discovered I had already liked and favorited this video years ago... I know nothing.

The amount of things I took in on a daily basis (hurts the ones who are the most curious) was staggering in proportion and I understood about a few months back that my brain was trying to keep it all in but was struggling with information overload , great vid.

Best educational video I've ever watched on RU-vid. With the suitable humor, visuals, charts and appropriate quotations.

As someone who loves to read, to learn as much as possible, I sympathize with this video a lot. It's so frustrating when I forget things that I thought I knew very well! Great video!

Theory: People don't notice they are forgetting (things so easily) THUS people don't value the act of reviewing and re-watching because they forget that they can forgetting.

Well put. I have found, for me, it is to teach what you want to know; similar to Feynman’s method. Read it, wight it out in notes, organize an outline, study the outline, and if possible explain it to someone without you notes, just the outline. It takes time, however I seem to remember more down the road.

Very well put together. It's fascinating how a different perspective on a similar subject, can make it more impactful.

1. Recall: spend 1min recalling the key points after each section 2. Feyman: write an explanation for a 5 year old (use analogies) 3. Spaced repetition (muscle/neuro pathways)

TO SUM IT UP, *JUST REMEMBER THIS* : *The Four Stages of Learning* *1) Unconscious Incompetence.* *2) Conscious Incompetence.* *3) Conscious Competence.* *4) Unconscious Competence.*

So edifying to hear all the thoughts that have been swirling in my brain as they circle the drain then seeing it encapsulated in first principles that I can abide by: thank you for this!!

I personally like to criticise the ideas I read by stopping to think all the time reading. Just stopping to think about this stuff is great and trying to criticise it can be a good way to actually grapple with the ideas, as well as decide if I agree with them or not. Also critical thinking is underrated.

8:20 I don't think you even need to write it down. I've found just speaking out loud to yourself or having an argument with yourself in your head (like you do in the shower) works quite well too. (some of the smartest people in history would talk to themselves, so while some people see it as crazy, it's not really. Just do it when you're alone or just do it in your head)

I have a disability where if someone teaches me the first time I will forget everything the next day. That's when everyone judges or ppl get mad at me because I than forget. I need constant repitition to understand a thing

One of the most useful videos I've watched in a long time! Thank you

We usually feel bad about not being able to retain information or adequately explain a subject that we understand, and that only gets worse when we see other people being so articulate about so many subjects, especially on youtube. Those who are experts on a particular subject know their stuff because they keep dealing with that information on a daily basis. Even in their own field, they'll forget a bunch of things over time if they don't have any use for them. Then you have those people who seem to know everything there is to know about pretty much any subject, but that's not what it seems to be. They study the subject prior to the presentation. They'll retain a few things afterwards, but a lot of it will be lost as well. You won't retain information that you don't need. You either revisit the subject periodically, or eventually you'll lose it. And that's normal.

This is a rephrasing of the old saying, "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand"?

This is one of the most valuable videos on youtube.

That was an absolutely spectacular video, and thank you. I had no idea how much I needed this.

I love this genre of learning how to learn , improvment of memory as well as info about how the brain works

Good video. I have often taught that "Repetition is the MOTHER of Learning". Your points about Recall, Feynman, and Spaced Repetition, all speak to that. I also appreciated your closing comments; especially "Life isn't a Book Report".

Been reading Mortimer Adler for years now. _How to Read a Book_ is a must read if you're a serious reader or learner.

I'm very happy watching this video, the timing of quotes is flawless how greatful you are man

One of the first >10min videos I’ve watched without getting distracted. Fantastic video and definitely need this content in my life!

Nicholas Carr is legit. His article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” was one of the best things I read in high school- and anywhere else.

Amazing, this is why the BIBLE says I must meditate on God's word day and night.!! I will be spending more time thinking of one verse at a time.. To have the humility before God and await for revelation from God. To diligently seek and wait upon God is pleasing to Him, to obey His commands. Thanks

I come back to this videos every now and then. Thank you great video

This is the best video I've seen on RU-vid this year so far. Love the way you expained this concept and humbled me ;)

There is a rule when doing public speaking to get the audience to retain more of the speech and it goes like this. "Tell them what your going to tell them. Then tell them. Then tell them what you just told them."

This could be one of the most important videos one could watch in our time.

Awesome video, thank you for this. I picked up my notebook right way. Time to do some recalling. I love the idea of it spread out over longer periods of time. That is actually something which sounds more plausible to realise to me.

I'm very glad I found this video. You explained some ideas that I only had a surface understanding of and reinforced their importance. I've been struggling to learn information related to my career path for a while now, often feeling like a beginner despite my current job. I'm going to start implementing the 3 steps you mentioned during my study time (I've written them down so I won't forget) and I'll see how much of a difference they make.

Man, I can't believe you're calling me out like this but I love it. I met someone who still remembered things like quick division & all I could think was, "how in the world does she still remember that?"

0:40 "I know that I know nothing " -Socrates

wonderful video, Will! Thank you for making it!

Thank you, for blessing me with this knowledge. Really needed it.