Let me know if this sounds familiar. You finished the book two weeks ago. Someone brings it up at dinner. You know you liked it. You know it changed something in how you think. But when you try to explain what it said, the specific argument, the part that mattered... it's gone. You cannot recall it, even if your life depends on it.

Painfully familiar, isn't it? well, this happens to everyone. And the usual advice ("take better notes," "read more carefully") misses the point entirely and is not really helpful (Personally I find it super condescending). The problem isn't attention. It's that most of us read like spectators when we should be reading like participants.

Context is everything

Here's the single most important thing about memory: new information only sticks when it attaches to something you already know.

"When you are learning something new, you bring to mind all of the things you know that are related to that information."

The biggest lie on education that we have been told is that our brain is a filing cabinet. The closer analogy would be a web, where every memory is a node, and the more connections a node has, the easier it is to find again. A fact that floats alone, connected to nothing, dissolves fast. The same fact woven into things you already care about, already understand, already have opinions on? That one stays.

Framing it from that point of view then the real question isn't "how do I remember more?", but "how do I connect more?"

Read With Six Different Brains

Edward de Bono came up with something called the six thinking hats. It's a framework for approaching any material from multiple angles. It's one of the best ways to turn passive reading into something your memory can actually hold onto.

Each "hat" is a lens:

  • White — What are the raw facts here? What information is missing?
  • Red — How does this make me feel? What's my gut reaction?
  • Black — What could go wrong? What's the weak spot in this argument?
  • Yellow — What's the upside? Where's the opportunity?
  • Green — What else could this mean? What ideas does it spark?
  • Blue — Zoom out. What's the big picture? What matters most?

You don't need to formally cycle through all six every time you read. But even switching between two or three of them while reading a chapter will change what you retain. The general idea is to move away from a passive activity to an interactive one, with a systematic approach. When you read a passage and think "that feels wrong" (red hat) and then ask "okay, but what if it's right, what would that mean?" (yellow hat), you've just created two connections instead of zero. That's the nature of the game.

No better anchor than a feeling.

"Your brain is wired to connect your emotions to your memories."

Cold information is forgettable information. Think about the books you do remember. Chances are they created some strong feeling. Either they made you curious, excited, maybe they made you angry, or uncomfortable. If I think about it, I remember better the even the disappointing books than the mediocre ones. The content that sticks is the content that moved you.

This is why margin notes matter more than highlights. A highlight says "this seemed important." A margin note that says "this contradicts what I thought about X" or "I should try this tomorrow", that's you reacting. That reaction is an emotion, even a small one, and remember emotions are glue for memory.

Discuss what you read with someone. Teach a concept to a friend, even badly. Write a paragraph arguing against the author. All of these create friction between you and the material, and friction is where memory forms.

It's okay to read less, but read it twice

"Quality is way more important than quantity."

There's a strange guilt around re-reading. It feels inefficient, shouldn't you be moving on to the next book? I was instead taught that you have to read lightly first. Flowy, not stopping, not focusing, the first read is an exploration. The first read is mostly orientation. You're meeting the ideas in the book for the first time, getting the shape of the argument, figuring out what the author even means.

The second read is where understanding actually starts. You already know where the argument is going, so you notice things you missed. You catch the quiet setup on page 30 that pays off on page 180. You start to see structure, not just the content. The meaning behind the pages starts to seep in.

One book read twice will teach you more than two books read once. Skim less. Re-read more.

Think With Borrowed Lenses

Mental models are thinking shortcuts, big fan here. Thinking, Fast and Slow, from Daniel Kahneman is one of my most influential readings ever. Become familiar with them. They are patterns you can lay over new information to make sense of it faster. A few that I find especially useful when reading:

Confirmation bias. You naturally gravitate toward ideas that match what you already believe. Knowing this, you can deliberately look for the parts of a book that challenge you. Those uncomfortable passages? They're probably the easier ones to remember.

Availability bias. Whatever comes to mind first feels most true, but it's often just most recent or most dramatic. When a book presents evidence, ask yourself: am I being convinced by the argument, or just by the vividness of the example?

Utility. The simplest filter: can I use this? Information tied to a concrete action ("I'll try this in my next meeting") has a natural anchor in memory. Abstract knowledge that never touches your life tends to drift away. If you are able to frame a piece of knowledge into a situation or a context where it could be useful for you, or where you could apply that, that will stick with you forever.

These exercises are practical habits that change how information lands in your brain, and whether it stays or not.

My honest take: you better care

Remembering what you read is not about technique. Not really. It's about giving a damn while you're reading.

Connect new ideas to old ones. Argue with the author in the margins. Feel something about what you're reading, even if it's just mild irritation. Read the good stuff twice. And when you catch yourself skimming on autopilot, stop, back up, and actually think.

That's all it takes. Not more effort. Just a different kind of attention. The good news is that you can work on how to polish the way that attention works. The other day Eileen Gu was saying that she actually looks at the way she thinks and her neuroplasticity allows her to transforms the way she thinks, and transforming the way she thinks she changes who she is, becoming the person she wants to be. That's an extremely powerful tool and an amazing lesson (also big fan of the olympics here!).