How not to forget the books you read

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Today we will talk about how to get the most important information from useful literature and never forget it. To do this, you need to develop a habit of systematic reading and correct work with notes.

In "" the author, Pierre Bayard, adds to his classification of unread books those whose contents we have forgotten. Because the process of forgetting at one moment can reach the point when our ideas about the book are equal to the ideas of a person who did not even hold it in his hands.

A logical question arises - then why do we read useful literature if we cannot take any knowledge out of it? Or maybe, in order to take out something useful and applicable in life from the book, you should reconsider your attitude to the reading process and change it?

What do you do when you read a popular science book?

Do you put it in a prominent place so that others can see what you are reading and, in general, well done? Do you give it to a friend to read or return it to the library? Are you deleting the electronic version? Looking for something similar on the topic? Or do you just send it to the closet so that you will never return to it?

If this is about you, you lose the opportunity to use new knowledge to your advantage and forget most of the book.

Most of us read passively. We skim through information, often tweeting or replying to messages in between, and hope that we can apply at least a grain of valuable knowledge to life.

But reading in this way, we just move from one book to another with a small amount of information and quickly forget everything that we just learned.

What a waste of time! By acting correctly, you can enjoy non-fiction, actively learn and build a system for yourself so as not to forget anything important from the books you read.

1. Look for books

If you read popular science and business literature in order to learn something new or do something new (meditate, exercise, increase sales, and so on), then the selection of books must be approached very, very carefully.

And the best option in this case is to listen to professionals, and not buy a book by an unknown author at the nearest kiosk.

Be sure to read reviews on the web. Of course, books are a matter of taste, so ratings can range from excellent to disgusting. Therefore, pay attention only to well-reasoned reviews. The rating can also tell a lot about the book: if the majority gives it a high rating, it at least deserves interest.

Ask for advice from those who, in your opinion, are well versed in the field that interests you. People love to give advice. Therefore, even an unfamiliar person will not refuse this request.

But it’s even easier to make the best book list. If you want to learn how to write selling texts, look for authors and copywriters on the Web who do it professionally: lists of books that they recommend reading constantly appear on their blogs. Look for common ground. One person may like the book, another thinks it is useless - but if different people recommend the same book, this is a good sign.

With the list of books ready, proceed to the next step.

2. Read and take notes

As a rule, we read fiction for pleasure, for aesthetic pleasure. It requires thoughtful, measured reading. A good fiction book should be read cover to cover. Non-fiction can be read quickly. We need to absorb the most useful information, so you can practice speed reading in popular science literature.

As you read, mark significant places and those that you want to remember. With e-books it is quite simple - each reader has a bookmark function. If you are old school and prefer paper books, detachable notes or bookmarks with a taped edge are great for these purposes.

The more you read and note, the easier it will be for you to separate useful information from water.

Most (good) books clearly show the logic of presentation, argumentation. You will immediately begin to determine where the introduction is, where the intermediate, and where the final conclusions, and you will be able to quickly understand which part you can skip.

When you finish reading a book, don't start pulling out all your notes right away. Wait. Instead, keep reading books related to the topic you just read (assuming you want to delve deeper into your chosen area; otherwise, start reading any other book). And in order not to forget to return to what you read, start keeping a new list - a list of books from which you need to get notes. Any note-taking application - Google Keep or Evernote - is perfect for this.

Why don't you need to get your notes right away? For two reasons.

At first, it will take time for the information to settle in your head. More information will remain in long-term memory if some time passes between the first and second impressions. Wait a few days before rereading important information.

Secondly, you don't waste this break and keep reading. As you continue reading related books, you will see which ideas are ubiquitous and which only slip through once or twice. If you come across a specific idea from only one author, take it with a bit of skepticism. But if any advice is found in literally every book, most likely it is worth writing it down.

Taking notes is also an effective way to determine which book is worth reading from start to finish, and which one can simply flip through.

If you read and do not take notes in the process, this may indicate that there is not much useful information in the book. There are exceptions to this rule: for example, if the book does not have a heap of conclusions, but nevertheless it is wonderful. But if you are reading a book for teaching and you cannot find any more or less meaningful conclusions in it, it can be a waste of time.

So, you've read enough books, so we can move on to the next point.

3. Retrieve notes

Note that you don't just need to organize your notes and copy them. You will lose a lot of useful information this way.

Instead, skim through the entire book, stopping briefly at the points where you took notes. This will refresh the context so you can easily combine disparate pieces of information, as well as pay attention to things that you did not understand the importance of before.

Why? Because now you have a higher level of understanding of the entire book as a whole, and you understand why certain parts of it are organized in this way and why things that you did not pay attention to the first time are still worth adding.

Select all the pieces of text and ideas you want and save them all in one place. For these purposes, again, Evernote is suitable, a regular notepad - use a convenient tool for yourself.

Now that you have refreshed the book in your memory, collected all the notes in one place, it remains to delete it from the list of books from which you need to get notes.

You have all the information you need in case you need to refer to it in the future. Alternatively, you can combine these notes with notes from other books to have an all-encompassing knowledge of a specific topic.

What happened next?

Often people who have just learned about this method ask the question: "Is someone really constantly going back and re-reading their notes."

Yes and no. To some you return, to some you do not, and that's good. Remember your school years and cheat sheets: while you write it on a piece of paper, everything is remembered by itself, and it makes no sense to get it out on the test.

Therefore, in our case, it is not the result, a huge collection of notes, that is important, but the process itself: you read carefully, highlight the most important things, give yourself time to comprehend and refresh what you read in your memory with the help of notes.

Notes are just help, they allow you to better remember meaningful information and translate it into long-term memory. A physical (or digital) copy is a fallback.

And even if you never return to your notes, you are still training your ability to retain knowledge from books.

Step by step

Let's summarize all of the above so that you do not have to re-read the article if you need to refresh its content in memory:

Make a list of books based on the recommendations of the professionals.
Learn to read non-fiction quickly.
Highlight important parts.
When you finish reading a book, add it to the list of books, the notes from which will need to be parsed.
Set aside the book for a week or two.
Go back to the book, skim it quickly, focusing on important points, and jot down your notes.