I learned a system for remembering everything

- Imagine being able to pick up any book, read it and remember almost

everything

it contains. This type of superpowered memory may seem like fiction, but there are people in the real world who seem to have an incredible ability to retain information and I'm definitely not one of them. I've read hundreds of books, blogs, and newsletters, but my ability to remember them is terrible. So I finally decided to investigate this blind spot, learn how the smartest people in the world remember information, and discover their

system

s so I could use them for myself. This video was brought to you by Squarespace;

I'll talk more about them later in the video. If I showed you a nonfiction book you've read in the past year, whether for school, work, or your own personal development, how likely are you to be able to remember five facts from the book? How well could you explain the book to someone else? Alright, let me try it for myself. "Steal like an artist" being creative means being inspired by other people and you should steal like an artist. It's really a book about... (lips trilling) I just read this book, so it's a little unfair. What else was it?

What else was in this book? Great ideas are really simple and clear. I think that's all I have. I can't even remember one of the 48 laws. I just read it, I just read this book about a month ago. There's little point in reading non-fiction books, particularly books about personal development, if you're not going to absorb and implement the ideas, but

remembering

everything

can be a little difficult for the average person. After some research, I discovered that our ability to remember things varies greatly from person to person. Some have terrible memories, some have exceptional ones, and still others have photographic memories.

As you may have guessed, the average memory is corporeal, confusing, and often unreliable. It is easier for us to remember events that deviate from our typical sensory experience. Like getting hit in the face with a ball, that cool thing you

learned

in that self-help book, not so much, but my question is can we change that? I knew exactly who I needed to talk to. I read online that you have read more than 3000 books, is it true? - I don't know, I think it's probably rude to tell, you know, like with romantic partners. - I don't know about you, but that number, well, it wouldn't take me long to add it up.

Ryan Holiday is the author of international bestsellers like "The Obstacle is the Way" and "The Ego is the Enemy," and while I don't remember much of what I read in these books, I do remember that they were really good. Ryan, thank you so much for being here. - Of course. -One of the things that caught my attention when I interviewed Ryan for the first time in 2019 was the memory of him. He effortlessly pulled quotes and stories from the books he has read over the years. -Eisenhower, he had this line, he said, "William James talked about this.

I have a quote in the introduction to Blaise Pascal. Buddha and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Confucius and-"-I really needed to know his secret. So I had a video call with him so I could get to the bottom of it. One of the main reasons I wanted to chat with you is because I have this problem where I read a nonfiction book and then completely forget about it. Like I could look at that book and say, "I don't remember one or two things about this book." How can we get better at

remembering

what we read and putting what we read into practice? - First of all, I would be a little nicer to you.

Having one or two things that you take from a book, if those are important things that could change your life, you know, you paid $11 for this book, it's so bad that you only got two things that changed your life, right? So I think sometimes people say, "I don't remember the book perfectly." I mean, the book was supposed to take you on a journey and leave you with something. I started in the publishing world as a research assistant. I work for this amazing author named Robert Greene and he showed me a way of reading that I practice to this day and that I think could be valuable, which is basically, when I read a book, I fold the pages as I read and then I take notes to my.

I'm highlighting the things that I like and then what I do as a writer because I want to use a lot of this information is then transfer the things that I really liked or that really impacted me and put them in note. cards, so I just write down the thought I had that inspired me or I write down the story and then I sort those cards by theme. So I'm creating a kind of outside brain that organizes the things I took from the books. - So I decided to put Ryan's

system

to the test and try it for myself and what better book to start with than "Courage Is Calling", by the way, that's Ryan's latest book.

Alright, I've got my tools here, highlighter, pen, my post-it markers here and a stack of cards and of course my book, let's see how that works. So when you really break down Ryan's system, there are three main parts. First, take notes as you read, second, review and revise your notes when you are done with the book, and third, categorize and file your notes. The reason this type of system is so effective in helping us retain more of what we read is because of how our brain processes information. Over time, we have developed a classification process to help us determine what information to keep in our explicit memory.

That is the type of long-term memory that deals with the memory of facts and events. Thanks to what is known as heuristic memory processing, we tend to prioritize information that is frequently used, recently used, or likely to be necessary to make decisions. So becoming a better student is about trying hard, reading, taking notes, studying, and making use of the information you are receiving. In other words, have a system like Ryan's and, although Ryan said he enjoys audiobooks. and e-books, he believes analog has an advantage. - I tend to find people who say, "Oh, I listen to a lot of audiobooks or I listen to, I read a lot of e-books," the withdrawal is not there.

They say, "I do my reflections, but they just go somewhere on my computer." I think there's something about stepping away from the screen, sitting down, and engaging deeply with the world in front of you. (soft music) (cup bangs) - Alright, I finished reading "Courage Is Calling" and took a lot of notes. So I'm a slow reader in this process of taking careful notes throughout the entire book, it definitely slows me down even more, probably by 30 or 40%, but the idea is that hopefully this will make these memories e ideas are a little more catchy. Now, I need to read this whole book and take all my notes, all the best notes I've ever taken and write them down on these cards.

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Now that I'm two-thirds of the way through the note-taking experiment, it's clear that this is a very slow and methodical process. If you're like me, this may make you feel a little anxious, but what I keep remembering is that it's not about becoming superhuman and devouring books in a day. It's about taking the time to digest the information, think critically about it, and try to find ways to reuse and reuse what I'm learning and, most importantly, enjoy the process. - Reading is a pleasurable activity, I enjoy doing it and you would never hear someone say: "Dude, I have faster sex, you wouldn't believe it", right?

Or like, "You should see how quickly I can devour food at this fancy restaurant." I'm having a conversation with Ernest Hemingway, Marcus Aurelius or Doris Kearns Goodwin, they are the best people in the world at what they do. I want to enjoy it as if I were going to take my time doing it. - So I finished taking the best ideas, stories and quotes from this book and writing them down on about 20 or 30 cards and now it's the point in the process where I need to review and organize all of this. One thing I realized in this process is that you don't remember things by accident, which means I need to systematize and organize all these notes into different groups, categories, and topics.

It's probably too early to say if this system will improve my long-term memory. I have a feeling I'll still be on the goldfish end of the memory scale, but I've

learned

something even more important over the past few weeks following this system. In reality, you can't remember everything you want, you just need to store it outside of your brain. Oh, and if you're wondering if I'll stay like this, maybe, but I don't know if it'll look exactly like this. I don't know how many boxes of cards I can have in my house and still maintain my sanity.

How many boxes of cards do you have? - Well, at least one for every book I've written, but I'm looking, I have one, two, three, four, five, six, I have seven in my office right now. My system is a combination of Rob Greene's and yours may be your own spin on mine. - Whether you decide to follow an analog system like Ryan's or go digital, the important thing is to get started. - It is better to start imperfectly than to be paralyzed by the hope or delusion of perfection. My system has evolved over the years, it will continue to evolve.

Maybe there will be some version in the future where it goes digital, but right now, this is what works for me and the main thing is that I'm doing it every time and I'm getting better as I go. - Thank you very much for watching this video, if you liked it, don't forget to press Subscribe and especially that little Notification Bell so that you receive videos from me in the future that way, you won't have to try too hard to remember to watch my video. videos later. By the way, my exploration of memory and learning is just beginning.

Stay tuned in a couple of weeks for a new video on how to build a second brain by taking all the information we consume and putting it into a smart digital system. - It is the complete ecosystem of applications that you use to manage information. - Thanks for watching and see you next time.