- Imagine being able to pick up any book, read it, and remember almost everything from it. This kind of superpower memory recall might feel like fiction, but there are people in the real world that seem to carry an incredible ability to hold on to information and I'm definitely not one of them. I've read hundreds of books, blogs, and newsletters, but my ability to recall any of it is terrible.
So I decided to finally look into this blind spot, to learn about how the smartest people in the world remember information and to uncover their systems so I can use them for myself. This video is brought to you by Squarespace, I'll talk more about them later in the video. If I were to show you a non-fiction book that you've read over the past year, whether it was 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? All right, let me give this a try for myself. "Steal Like An Artist" being creative means getting inspired by other people and you should steal like an artist.
It's really a book about- (lip trills) I just read this book so this one's a little bit unfair. What else was it? What else was in this book?
Great ideas are really simple and clear. I think that's all I got. I can't even remember one of the 48 laws.
I just read it, I just read this book like a month ago. There's not much of a point of reading non-fiction books, particularly books about personal development if you're not actually going to absorb and implement the insights, but remembering everything might be a bit of a stretch for the average person. After some research, I discovered that our ability to remember things varies wildly from person to person.
Some have terrible memories, others exceptional, and even others have photographic memories. As you might have guessed, the average memory is body, messy, and often unreliable. It's easier for us to remember events that provide a deviation from our typical sensory experience.
Like getting hit in the face with a ball, that interesting thing you learned from that self-help book, not so much, but my question is can we change that? I knew exactly who I needed to speak with. I read online that you've read over 3,000 books is that true?
- I don't know, I think it's probably bad form to count, you know, like with the romantic partners. - I don't know about you, but that number, well, it wouldn't take me very long to add up. Ryan Holiday is the international bestselling author of great books like "The Obstacle Is the Way" and "Ego Is the Enemy" and while I can't remember much of what I read in these books, I do remember them being really good.
Ryan, thanks so much for being here. - Of course. - [Matt] One of the things that I was struck by when I first interviewed Ryan back in 2019, was his memory recall.
He pulled quotes and stories effortlessly from the books that he's read over the years. - Eisenhower, he had this line, he said, "William James talked about this. I have a quote in the intro from Blaise Pascal.
Buddha and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Confucius and-" - I seriously needed to know his secret. So I jumped on a video call with him so we could get to the bottom of it. One of the main reasons why I wanted to chat with you is because I have this problem where I read a non-fiction book and then I completely forget about everything.
Like I can look at that book and be like, "I don't remember one or two things from this book. " How can we get better at remembering what we read and putting into practice what we read? - First off, I'd be a little kinder to yourself.
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 like is it so bad that you only got two life changing things from it, right? So like I think sometimes people are like, "I don't have perfect recall of the book," I mean, the book was supposed to take you on a journey and leave you with something. I started in publishing 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 that I think could be valuable, which is basically, as I read a book, I fold pages as I'm reading and then I make notes to myself. I'm highlighting the things that I'm liking and then what I do as a writer because I want to use a lot of this information is I then transfer the stuff that I really liked or that really impacted me and I put them on note cards and so I just write the thought that I had that it inspired or I write down the story and then I sort those note cards by theme. So I'm kind of creating like an exterior brain that organizes the stuff that I took from the books.
- So I decided to put Ryan's system to the test and try it out for myself and what better book to start with than "Courage Is Calling," that's Ryan's latest book by the way. All right, so I've got my tools here, highlighter, pen, my post-it bookmarks here, and a stack of note cards and, of course, my book, let's see how this works. So when you really break down Ryan's system, there are three main parts.
First, take notes while you read, second, revisit and revise your notes when you're finished with the book, and third, categorize and file your notes. The reason why this kind of system is so effective at helping us retain more of what we read comes down to how our brains process information. Over time, we've developed a sorting process to help us determine what information to hold onto in our explicit memory.
That's the type of long term memory that's concerned with recollection of facts and events. Thanks to what's known as heuristic memory processing, we tend to prioritize information that is frequently used, recently used, or likely to be needed to make decisions. So becoming a better learner is all about putting in the work, reading, taking notes, studying, and making use of the information that you're taking in.
In other words, having a system like Ryan's and while Ryan said that he enjoys audiobooks and eBooks, he thinks that there's an advantage to going analog. - I do tend to find that people who are like, "Oh, I listen to a lot of audiobooks or I listen to- I read a lot of eBooks," the recall's not there. They're like, "I do my highlights, but they just go somewhere on my computer.
" I think there is something about getting away from the screen, sitting down, and engaging deeply with the world in front of you. (gentle music) (mug thuds) - All right, so I have completely finished reading "Courage Is Calling" and I have taken extensive notes throughout. So I am a slow reader in this process of taking thorough notes throughout the entire book, definitely slow me down even more probably by 30 or 40%, but the idea is that hopefully, this will make these memories and ideas just a little bit more sticky.
Now, I need to go through this entire book and take all of my notes, all of the best notes that I've taken and put them down onto these note cards. So this video is sponsored by my friends over at Squarespace. I've been using Squarespace for nearly a decade for one main reason, they make it insanely easy for me to bring my ideas to life, let me show you what I mean.
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So now, that I've gotten two thirds of the way into this note taking experiment, it's become clear that this is a very slow and methodical process. If you're anything like me, this can make you feel a bit antsy, but what I continue to remind myself is that this isn't about becoming superhuman and devouring books in a day. It's about taking the time to digest the information, think critically about it, and to try to find ways to reuse and repurpose what I'm learning and really more importantly to actually enjoy the process.
- Reading is a pleasurable activity, I enjoy doing it and so you would never hear someone be like, "Dude, I have the fastest sex you would not believe it," right? Or like, "You should see how fast I can scarf down food at this fancy restaurant. " I'm having a conversation with Ernest Hemingway or Marcus Aurelius or Doris Kearns Goodwin, these are like the best people in the world at what they do.
I wanna enjoy that like I'm gonna take my time doing it. - So I have finished taking the best ideas, note stories, and quotes from this book and put them down onto about 20 to 30 note cards and now, is the point in the process where I need to go through and organize all this. One thing that I've realized from this process is that you don't remember things by accident, which means I need to systematize and organize all of these notes into different buckets, categories, and themes.
It's probably too early to tell whether this system will improve my memory in the long run. I have a feeling I'm still gonna be on the goldfish end of the memory scale, but I've learned something even more important over the past few weeks of following this system. You actually can't remember everything you want to, you just need to store it outside of your brain.
Oh, and if you're wondering whether I'll keep this up myself, maybe, but I don't know if it'll look exactly like this. I don't know how many boxes of note cards I can have at my place and still keep my sanity. How many boxes of note cards do you have?
- Well, at least one for every single book that 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 an amalgamation combination of Rob Greene's and yours can be your own spin on mine. - [Matt] Whether you decide to follow an analog system like Ryan's or go digital, the important thing is to just get started.
- You're better off starting imperfectly than being paralyzed by the hope or the delusion of perfection. My system has evolved over the years, it will continue to evolve. Maybe there's some version in the future where it does become digital, but right now, this is what works for me and the main thing is that I'm doing it always and I'm getting better as I go.
- Thanks so much for watching this video, if you liked it, don't forget to hit Subscribe and especially that little Notification Bell so you get future videos from me that way you don't have to work too hard to remember to watch my videos later. By the way, my exploration into memory and learning is only just beginning. Stay tuned in a couple weeks for new video about how to build a second brain by taking all the information we consume and putting it into an intelligent digital system.
- It's the complete ecosystem of apps that you use to manage information. - [Matt] Thanks for watching and I'll catch you next time.
