如何“留住”你所學(xué)的東西

Most people forget what theyve just learnt within 12 and 24 hours. If you are reading this article now， chances are that tomorrow youll not even remember it. Our brain works like a big search engine， when you insert a new piece of information， it goes on a big stack called short term memory. When you want to remember that information， your brain will try to search inside that stack for the information you requested. This process happens asynchrony thats why you often remember a title of a song after many hours from your first attempt.

If you are trying to recall something after a long time （it can be even 1 hour for useless information）， your brain will have an hard time finding it， as its more likely you have forget it. Knowing this， we can try to understand why we forget what weve learnt just a few hours ago. When a new piece of information enters your brain， it is stored as a volatile information， because your brain doesnt know if its useful or not. For example you dont need to remember every car youve seen in your daily commute to work.

But what happens when you try to recall something youve previously learnt？ Most times you simply cant. If I would tell you now that to find the sum of the number from 1 to n you have to calculate （n+1） × n / 2， chances are that within one hour itll be already hard for you to recall the correct formula， although its pretty easy. This happens because （if you are not good at math） your brain does not find similar information already stored in your brain， so its hard for it to reinforce that information alone. And by now youve probably forget it. As youve just read， the major difficult for your brain is to reinforce and create consistency， and the best way to help your brain doing it is by recalling what youve just learnt multiple times. What does this mean in practice？

Knowing this， you can probably understand why your life doesnt change even after reading the best how to book youve ever read. Even if I was telling you the perfect formula for solving all your problems， and that formula would make perfect sense to you， you would forget it after a few hours， and your life would remain the same. Unless， of course， you deliberately reinforce your new knowledge and make it part of your life （also known as taking action）.

How do you keep track of new stuff？

Depending on the nature of the information youve just acquired， there are many ways to keep track of what youve learnt. If you want to master a new technique on your sport， the best way is to repeat it as many times as possible until it becomes second nature for you. If you are following a history class at school， it may be a good idea to create a mind map with the fundamental concepts and dates， and repeat it every day.

Enter the learning log

Given that I spend most of my learning time in front of a monitor， or reading a book， what I needed was something where I can store information very quickly. I used to have a personal wiki， but it didnt quite work for me. Instead I am now using a learning log， which is something extremely simple that can be done both in your computer and also in a simple notebook. The idea is to create a new entry every time you learn something new （assuming you want to remember it）. If you are doing this on paper， you can just write the date on the top of your sheet and then make an incremental bullet list. If you are doing this in your computer， you can do the same thing， but you also need to keep track of your files in an efficient way where its easy for you to switch from one day to another. With this simple method， it will be extremely easy to keep track of the new concepts you want to grasp. And if your system is not available at any time， you can make a note elsewhere， and merge it with your original file at the end of the day.

How often should you recall？

How often you need to recall depends on the mole of information youve stored and how important it is for you. As a general rule you should recall at the end of the day， after 24 hours， after 1 week， after 1 month， after 6 months， and after one year. This should be simple to do if your system is in order， as on a typical day you only have to recall 6 files. I tend to do a quick review at the end of the week for old files， but thats a personal choice and you have to try what works for yourself. If theres something that I absolutely want to master and remember well， I copy it on new days until necessary.

Will your brain ever become full？

If you are worried that your brain will become full one day with a method like this， you have to know that its basically impossible to happen. So dont worry and enjoy learning new stuff.

What to do now？

If what youve just read makes sense to you， the best thing you can do now is creating your learning log. It doesnt need to be perfect， as long as you get started you can always improve it.

大多數(shù)人在12到24小時內(nèi)會把他們剛學(xué)到的東西給忘記。如果你正在閱讀這篇文章，很有可能明天你就會忘掉它。我們的大腦運行起來就象一個大的搜索引擎，當(dāng)你輸入一條新信息，它就會存留在一個叫做短期記憶的大存儲棧中。你想要回憶起這條信息時，你的大腦會嘗試從存儲棧中搜尋你要的信息。但這個過程并不是同時發(fā)生的，這也就是為什么你經(jīng)常會在首次嘗試時記不住一首歌的歌名而很多小時后卻會記起它。

如果你在很長時間之后試圖重新回憶起某些東西（對于無用信息，哪怕僅有1小時之久），你的大腦也會很難找到它，因為很有可能你已經(jīng)忘記它了。明白這點，我們就可以理解為什么我們會忘記剛剛在數(shù)小時前學(xué)會的東西。當(dāng)一條新信息進(jìn)入你的大腦時，由于大腦不知道它是否有用，因此它會被當(dāng)作一條易失信息被存儲下來，正如你沒有必要記住你每天上下班所看到的每輛車一樣。

但當(dāng)你試圖回憶起你以前學(xué)過的某些東西時會怎么樣呢？大多數(shù)時候你會想不起來。如果我現(xiàn)在告訴你計算1到n的總和可以如此計算：（n+1） × n / 2，很有可能哪怕不超過一小時，但要你再回憶起正確的公式都會很難，雖然它其實很簡單。這是因為（如果你數(shù)學(xué)不太好）你的大腦沒有找到已存儲的類似信息，所以對它來說很難單獨強化這條信息，所以到現(xiàn)在你很有可能已經(jīng)忘記這公式了。正像你剛剛讀到的，大腦的主要困難是強化和創(chuàng)造信息的相容性，所以把剛剛學(xué)到的東西多回憶幾次是幫助大腦解決這個問題的最好方法。

實踐中這意味著什么？

明白這點，你也許就能理解為什么即便在你閱讀了最好的如何預(yù)約的指南之后，你的生活還是沒有改變。就算我告訴了你能解決你所有問題的最好方法，并且這方法對你極有意義，你也會在數(shù)小時后忘記它，你的生活也還是一樣。當(dāng)然，除非你刻意要強化這個新知識，并使之成為你生活的一部分（也就是采取行動）。

如何留住新知識？

根據(jù)你剛剛獲取的信息的性質(zhì)，有很多方法可以保留住它們。如果你想掌握你這項運動的一樣新技巧，最好的方法是盡可能地重復(fù)多次直到它成為你的第二天性。如果你在學(xué)校里正修著歷史課，用基本概念和日期在頭腦里創(chuàng)建起一個圖像，然后每天重復(fù)，這可是一個好主意。

建立學(xué)習(xí)日志

假定我大部份的學(xué)習(xí)時間都花在顯示器前，要么閱讀，要么別的，我需要的是一些能快速存儲信息的東西。我以前用個人網(wǎng)站，但對我作用不大?，F(xiàn)在我代之以學(xué)習(xí)日志，這是很簡單，用你的電腦或者一個簡單的筆記本就可以搞定。這個方法是每次你了解了一些新的東西，而且你想記住它，就可以創(chuàng)建一個新條目。如果你在紙上做，你可以在該頁上方寫上日期，然后做一個增加條目列表。如果你在電腦上操作，你也可以這樣做，但你也需要用有效的方法來保存文檔，使你能方便地從某一天切換到另一天的記錄。使用這個簡單的方法，就很容易記住你想掌握的新概念。并且如果你在某個時候不能使用你的電腦，你也可以在別的電腦上做筆記，最后把它合并到你的原始文件中。

你應(yīng)該多久回憶一次？

你需要多久回憶一次取決于你存儲的信息量及其對你的重要程度。通常你應(yīng)該在晚上，24小時后，一個星期后，一個月后，6個月后以及一年之后進(jìn)行回憶。如果你的文檔系統(tǒng)井然有序，這應(yīng)該容易做到，因為每一天你只需要回憶6個文件。我趨向于在周末快速回顧舊文件，但這只是我個人的選擇，你必須嘗試適合你自己的方式。如果有我絕對要掌握并熟記的東西，到必要時我會將它拷貝到新的日期。

你的大腦會被裝滿嗎？

如果你擔(dān)心這樣有朝一日你的大腦會被裝滿，那就有必要知道這是根本不可能發(fā)生的。所以別擔(dān)心，開開心心學(xué)東西吧。

現(xiàn)在怎么做？

如果剛才所說的對你有意義，你現(xiàn)在能做的最好的事情就是建立你的學(xué)習(xí)日志。它不需要做得很完美，只要你開始了，你總會完善它的。