I’ve been reading a lot of Justin Skycak’s blog posts. He’s the guy behind MathAcademy’s software. He’s also a mathematician and has coached students in a standard teacher-student setting.

There, in more than one post he says that note-taking is useless. This idea of capturing what you’re learning, as you’re learning, might seem like learning but it is not. It just puts the info in the short term memory (that’s what makes you think you’re learning).

But what’s needed is… that info should be put into the long term memory.

That can happen only if you practice recollecting what you’ve learned purely from memory, without referring to your notes.

This recalling action is what will copy the knowledge from short term memory into the long term memory.

So here’s how it works:

  • You learn a piece of info for the first time, maybe in a class-room setting, or in a youtube lecture or a book.. whatever.

  • You may take notes during this time. Or not. Personally, notes help me with video lectures where I can’t easily flip through it like a book to find sections and table of index.

  • Now… after a few hours, or the next day at your home you’ll sit down to revise this.

  • This is the crucial moment: Don’t open your notes or the source material to start the session. Instead, keep it nearby, but closed…

  • and then try to recall whatever you learned purely from memory. It needn’t be in the exact same words, but try as much as you can to get all of the concepts/ideas. Better, write it down.

  • Now since you’re doing this the first time, you’ll obviously get stuck at some point. But not completely from the start. You might be able to recall at least some of the stuff correctly in your first try. And just by this action, you’ve transferred these segments to your long-term memory. But this is kind of a first pass. You’d still need more passes to make it permament. But those will be much easier since you got it right the first time.

  • Now… about the parts where you got stuck. Now is when you’re allowed go back to your sources/notes and refer them. This is the best time to review the notes because you know where exactly your knowledge gap is. Either you may have forgotten it, or mis-remembered the info. Revising at this moment will reinforce that parts.

  • Now close the notes and try recalling again. Either the whole stuff, or just the stuff you revised. Recall by writing it down.

  • Repeat this process several times… across days until you don’t have to refer to your note sat all.

  • The last, but equally important steps to remember this info forever is to apply it in contexts other than the practice sessions. If you are going through a programming course, instead of just practicing the exercise problems given in the course, build something using that info. If you’re going through a course on fat loss or fitness, instead of just ‘remembering’ and ‘understanding’ the science behind the mechanism explained, apply it on yourself.

I’ll even go on to say that once you have assimilated the knowledge, both by being able to recall it 100% from long term memory, and by using it in your life exactly as it is intended to be, you won’t ever need the notes.

That piece of knowledge has now become a part of you.