How to remember what you read?
5 Powerful Techniques to Retain More from Nonfiction Books.
Reading books is one of the best forms of learning, from Elon musk to Mark Zuckerberg to Bill gates and almost everyone who is successful reads. I’m not suggesting that reading books is the only differentiator between success and failure. But it does provide you with an edge. Reading books makes you curious about things, which makes you learn more things and thus builds your knowledge bank and your understanding.
But here’s the catch, there’s no point in reading nonfiction books if you don’t remember what you’ve read, and by remembering I’m not suggesting that you have to remember every lesson from the book, that is just not at all possible.
Remembering what you’ve read depends upon how you’ve read that book, if you read it with the sole intention to just finish the book then I seriously doubt that you’ll be able to retain much from it.
On the other hand, if you’ve read the book with an intention to absorb it and learn from it. Then there is a higher possibility that you’ll be able to apply those lessons in your life and in effect, you’ll be able to retain more from that nonfiction book.
Even if you are able to absorb 5%-10% from each nonfiction book then that’s enough, don’t aim for 100% retention because that’s just a fickle dream.
With all of that being said, here are 5 Powerful Techniques that I’ve used over the years to retain what I’ve read from nonfiction books. All of these techniques are refined through personal experience over the years and the process is still going on, so they are not perfect but they are quite effective and they have worked for me.
“Growth is an endlessly iterative process.” — Mark Manson
1. Sharing is Caring:
It is the single most effective technique to get the most out of a nonfiction book or anything for that matter. When you read something in a nonfiction book don’t just keep it to yourself, share it with someone. They can be your colleagues, parents, friends, spouse, or anyone close to you who shares the same interests as you do.
When you share what you’ve read with others it multiplies your understanding of the concept. Not everyone will share the same perspective as you do on that topic and when you get to hear those different perspectives your mindset tend to grow as well in the process.
Read with an intention to share, and get different perspectives on the same idea.
I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned from various books on my Instagram page Booksmyrefuge for more than 2 years now and now I’ve started sharing it in detail through this blog. I get to hear lots of different opinions about people which helps me in retaining and understanding the concept with a much broader perspective.
2. Read a Book Multiple Times:
To be honest, I wasn’t much of a fan of re-reading books when I started out, but in the past couple of years, I discovered what I was missing. I was so naive to think that reading nonfiction books once was enough.
Now to discuss the merits of rereading nonfiction books, I’ll go slightly offroad and discuss something important that I promise will make sense to you as well. It’s the concept of the universe’s timing, we receive from the universe what we’re ready for, nothing more nothing less. The same goes with lessons, we will not learn the lessons that we’re not ready for yet.
When you read a book for the first time at a certain phase of your life you’ll learn the lessons that you were ready for and those lessons will catch your attention. Now when you reread the book at a different phase, you are bound to discover new lessons, new perspectives, and new ideas. Because now your capacity as an individual has changed. You are not the same person you were before. Now you are ready for some new lessons that the universe wants you to learn and it is different for everyone.
And also there is so much knowledge in a good nonfiction book that it is nearly impossible to understand it by reading it just once.
So even if you don’t believe in the universe’s timing then you might need to re-read it to retain concepts in a better way. And I’m not suggesting to re-read the entire book cover to cover. You can just reread your favorite chapters or chapters that you didn’t quite understand the first time around.
3. Take Notes and Revisit them:
Reading nonfiction books and taking notes go hand in hand, but taking notes only works if you revisit them regularly. Here’s a thing I found out only recently, stopping myself from reading and taking notes in a separate notebook wasn’t working out for me. Due to two reasons:
- Writing notes during a reading session was a distraction in itself for me.
- I wasn’t revisiting them and even if I do revisit them, I had to keep the book handy otherwise those notes weren’t making any sense without the proper context.
So I found the solution, I started writing on the margins and sticky notes and pasted them on that very page. So the next time when I’m rereading the book, I don’t have to look for the notebook where I’ve written my notes, and secondly, the book and the notes are together so I don’t lose the context and every time I reread the book, I revisit my previous notes at the same time.
So taking notes & finding the best way to revisit them helped me in retaining more from a nonfiction book. Do what works for you but don’t forget to take notes.
4. Reflect on What you Read:
Read. Pause. Reflect. Repeat.
Don’t rush through your book just for the sake of finishing it quickly, During reading a good nonfiction book you are bound to come across certain paragraphs, sentences, and chapters that demand special attention. It is important to give them what they deserve.
“Books don’t change people; paragraphs do; sometimes even sentences.“ — John Piper
Take your sweet time, take a pause, reflect on what you’ve just read, stare at the wall or look out of that window as long as you like, and write it down if you feel like it.
Pausing and musing over my thoughts on the topic that resonated with me helped me in understanding it better and thus remember it.
5. Apply What you’ve Read:
I saved the best for the last, it is the most crucial and significant part of the retention process and the most uncomfortable too which is why a lot of people shy away from it.
There is no point in reading nonfiction books or consuming any kind of self-improvement content if you are doing it just for entertainment purposes. If those ideas/concepts/perspectives are not making you a better individual or moving your life from point A to point B in a good way then you might as well stop consuming them.
Applying the lessons no matter how trivial they may seem at the start will help you retain way more than any of the techniques mentioned above. Start with something small, and build gradually. Set the intention right at the start of the book, that you are reading to change the way you are and become a better version of yourself.
“Don’t explain your philosophy, embody it.” — Epictetus
Thank you for reading till the end and giving your attention to this article.
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