How did he read my mind?

How can I read better and keep the ideas in my mind?

• I am a voracious reader, and read about a book a week. However I fail to keep the most important ideas in my mind. This is a particular issue with Business books. Eg with technical books, I have a specific set of problems I will try to solve with them which enable me to get a deeper understanding and appreciation. (Eg for a new programming language, I try solving some of the project Euler questions). How can I get a deeper understanding of the business books I read?

• Answer:

  I tend to forget many things that I read as well, especially if the content isn't immediately applicable.  To help me better remember and internalize non-fiction material that I care about, some of the concrete techniques that I use include: After reading a chapter, take notes on the key takeaway points from that chapter.  Condensing a chapter into a concise set of notes forces me to consciously think about the material and which parts of it are actually important.  The notes also provide a resource to help me quickly refresh my memory about the material when I actually do want to review it months later. Some people like to write notes in book margins; I prefer to take notes on the iPhone app, which automatically syncs to my computers.  Taking notes on the phone also has the nice property that it forces me to make judicious choices about how to express key concepts concisely, as typing on the phone isn't that fast. Find people interested in the topic or who've read the same book to discuss it.  My friends and I periodically meet for a book/essay discussion club over food at someone's apartment.  Having a conversation about the book introduces new insights and connections that others might've made while reading the book, or it might surface related topics or related books that lead to a better understanding of the material.  Reviewing the written notes from the original reading obviously helps in these discussions. Sometimes, I'll also just volunteer interesting stories or studies from books I've read in conversations with people (who doesn't like a story?), and I've found many of the stories to generally be good conversation starters with new people I meet as well.  Sharing stories typically invite questions or spark other bits of conversations around the topic, so they're another way to initiate discussion on the book. Use learnings from the book to write an answer or two on Quora.  If the book is any good, there should be any number of questions that I can answer using the book as a reference.  Sometimes, these answers require citing other sources as well, which I find further helps to reinforce any learnings I have from the original book. One related activity that I'd like to do more of is to write posts on interesting books I've read -- it's a great way to share thoughts with other people while also cementing what I've read in my head. The recurring theme in taking chapter notes, discussing the book with people, or writing answers based on the book is to find more ways for me to engage my mind in the material and to apply the knowledge that I've learned.  There's ample psychology and cognitive science research showing that note taking reinforces learning [1] and that multi-sensory learning is more efficient than unisensory learning [2]. ---------- [1] Note Taking and Learning: A Summary of Research, http://wac.colostate.edu/journal/vol16/boch.pdf [2] Benefits of multisensory learning, http://shamslab.psych.ucla.edu/publications/tics2008-reprint.pdf