How to Retain Information from Professional Reading

Studies indicate we lose up to 90% of new information within 3 days. That said, if we review this information within 24 hours, it’s been shown that we retain up to 80% of what we just learned. If we review again within 48 hours, that retention goes up to 85%, and if we review AGAIN within 72 hours, odds are we retain most if not all the material. This is spaced repetition and if you have new hire training or ongoing work trainings coming up, it could be a good idea to use this method. Here’s what it looks like in the real world: Yesterday was day 1 of our company’s 3-Day advanced training program to help us master a certain area we cover. - I limited distractions and took notes during the call. - After dinner, I reviewed what I learned for simply 5 minutes. - This AM before heading out, I took out a sheet of paper and wrote down every detail I could remember off the top of my head from the training yesterday to see what I retained and what gaps to fill. - At work today, my goal is to purposely get into convos with customers to practice what I learned and ask questions about their experience on the topic. - 15 minutes prior to today’s training, I’ll do another quick review of my notes from yesterday. - I’ll focus and take notes during today’s training, and later tonight will review what I learned yesterday AND today. - Tomorrow AM I’ll do another session where I’ll write out everything I can remember from the past 2 days off the top of my head, and will see what gaps are left. - I’ll sprinkle in a call with my 2 FSTs 🫱🏼🫲🏽 - Then I’ll repeat for day 3. At the end of this 3-day training, the goal is to get closer to mastery and be a more trusted advisor to my customers, help serve more patients, and as a result, help the company brand and sales. With this meaningful goal, the stakes are higher and makes my focus and excitement to learn increase. If you have a lot of new material to learn, I suggest getting serious about WHY it’s so important that you learn it and what life will look like if you master it. I also suggest looking into Jim Kwik ASAP. Good luck out here everybody. If you have a favorite method of learning, let me know! Include an example of when and how you used it too if you’re willing 🫱🏼🫲🏽

Learning a new skill? I bet you're making 2 big mistakes. 1. You're focusing too much on consuming information 2. You're not focusing enough on repetition I notice new #Python learners falling into this trap. It's a big problem with the resources we use to learn and the way we talk about and use those resources. 1️⃣ On too much focus on consuming information... Our brains don't learn by consuming information. Learning happens via repeated information retrieval attempts. That could mean quizzing, explaining a concept, or performing an action. This is a VERY common question that I'm always suspicious of: "What Python book should I read next?" Reading a book involves consuming information, but it doesn't usually involve very much information retrieval. Reading is "easier" than writing code and it's useful as a start, but only a small minority of learning time should be spent reading/watching. Attempted information retrieval feels challenging because it forces our brain to attempt something that it can't quite do yet. It can feel discouraging, but minute-by-minute it's usually MUCH more productive than re-reading. 2️⃣ On not enough focus on repetition... So we learn by information retrieval (quizzing, elaborating, doing), but we don't just need to retrieve once. We learn through "repeated" information retrieval attempts. Learning doesn't typically stick unless we retrieve information repeatedly, spaced out over many days. Repetition can feel VERY boring. You tried the thing. Maybe you even succeeded at the thing. Now you had to do the same thing again a week later? What?! Attempted information retrieval feels challenging and repetition often feels boring, so so successful learning can sometimes feel both boring and exhausting... at the same time! Even when you know how effective learning works, those in-the-moment negative feelings won't necessarily disappear. The antidotes to these 2 problems are: • Active recall: attempting to retrieve information from your head, noting that you will fail at this quite often but that each attempt (even a failed one) helps make it stick • Spaced repetition: repeatedly performing active recall, spaced hours, days, and weeks apart to allow your brain time to forget a bit before attempting recall again I've been thinking about these two problems over the past month and it's inspired a big update this week to the way exercise revisiting works in Python Morsels. Revisiting the same exercise again feels boring, so this feature has been severely underused. As of this week, revisiting an exercise is much more highly encouraged, which I'm hoping will improve learning retention. Time will tell! #learning #teaching #Python #pedagogy

Most of what you learn today will be forgotten by next week. But here’s how to make it stick: Apply it, then share it. For years, I consumed endless content (Books, Podcasts, Trainings, you name it). It felt like I was learning a ton, but in reality, it was like pouring water into a leaky bucket. Now, whenever I learn something new, I follow these steps: 1️⃣ 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: Write it down. I create folders for different topics and store new info there. ↳ This helps me remember it longer. 2️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀: Create an action item to put the learning into practice. ↳ Taking action cements the knowledge. 3️⃣ 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲: Communicate it to others in a succinct way (like here on LinkedIn). ↳ Explaining it to others forces me to master my understanding. As Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” That’s how I personally ensure knowledge sticks — what techniques do you use? Would you give this a try?