[Great overview](https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2018\/01\/what-was-this-article-about-again\/551603\/) of the “[forgetting curve](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Forgetting_curve)”, the way that we immediately forget almost all the information we take in:<\/p>\n
> For many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the rest is gone.<\/p>\n
That describes many of my reading experiences quite well; sometimes I feel like [the characters in this Portlandia skit](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6JLWQEuz2gA). The key to avoiding this is recalling and re-encountering the information again:<\/p>\n
> If you want to remember the things you watch and read, space them out…Memories get reinforced the more you recall them, Horvath says. If you read a book all in one stretch\u2014on an airplane, say\u2014you’re just holding the story in your working memory that whole time. “You’re never actually reaccessing it,” he says.<\/p>\n
The most well-known technique for recalling information systematically is [spaced repetition](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spaced_repetition):<\/p>\n
> Spaced repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect.<\/p>\n
This website has always served as my [outboard brain](http:\/\/archive.oreilly.com\/pub\/a\/javascript\/2002\/01\/01\/cory.html), but I don’t re-encounter my own thoughts on a regular basis. I’ve tried a few times to set up a system to send me random past posts; worth getting that going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Great overview](https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2018\/01\/what-was-this-article-about-again\/551603\/) of the “[forgetting curve](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Forgetting_curve)”, the way that we immediately forget almost all the information we take in: > For many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the…more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,366,378,4],"tags":[358],"class_list":["post-5777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-education-2","category-psychology-2","category-ryskampdotorg","tag-tagged"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wjHJ-1vb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5781,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions\/5781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}