How to Remember Everything You Read

in this video I'll teach you a system

for remembering everything you read

study or learn I've been using the

system for the last 7 years starting

from learning disease pathophysiology in

medical school through to reading

research articles and learning science

or reading books on productivity or

business and the reason the system works

so consistently and so well is because

it breaks down that process of reading

into two distinct stages the first stage

is the consumption

period and the second stage is the

digestion

period most people think that by

focusing on the first stage and

consuming more information they'll be

able to therefore remember and apply

more information so they focus on trying

to read faster or watching lectures at

triple speed or binge listening to audio

books or watching hours of YouTube

tutorials but that is not how learning

works and once we understand how

learning does work you'll see why my

system is so effective you see when it

comes to remembering and applying

information it's much less about what

comes in to your brain and it's much

more about how much stays in your brain

and that is what the second stage the

digestion period is all about and it's

the part that is often neglected so

teach you a system for mastering both of

these stages which in turn increases

your Aurora retention as well as your

ability to actually use the knowledge in

the way that you need to but first we

need to ask ourselves is it even

possible to remember everything you read

and the short answer is no but here's

the secret trying to remember everything

we read should not be the goal in the

first place and we know this because of

a man who actually could remember

everything this man's name is Kim Peak

and his story is so crazy that Hollywood

made an entire movie about him Kim Peak

was a mega genius and his memory was

ridiculous he was able to memorize a

book with such perfect recall that after

reading a book one time he would be able

to write it out word for word with every

comma and full stop back to front he

memorized so many maps and atlases that

he could give you driving directions

between any two cities in the world and

the path that he gave you was mentally

calculated to be the shortest distance

now the reason K had such supernatural

abilities is because of a very rare

medical condition he had called FG

syndrome he was born with macroy which

means he had a larger brain and he had

no Corpus colossum which is basically

the bundle of neurons that connect both

hemispheres of the brain together in

scientists believe that because he

didn't have the normal pattern of

neurons his brain adapted and developed

Ved new connections to compensate which

I guess gave him like superhuman memory

now I want you to imagine that both you

and Kim Peak were about to sit the same

exam who do you think would do better

and the answer is that it actually

depends on the exam you see despite his

superhuman memory Kim Peak struggled

with reasoning and problem solving which

means that if the exam was at the junior

levels of schooling which often tests on

the lower levels of of learning which

involve a lot of memorization and recall

then Kim Peak would definitely win but

if the exam was at a higher level like

University or postgraduate where the

reasoning and problem solving the higher

orders of learning are examined as a

higher priority then you may actually

have the edge now for most of you

listening probably using the knowledge

you have consumed to reason and problem

solve is kind of the whole point of why

you're trying to read and remember in

the first place which basically means

that it is not enough to remember

everything which is good because for

most people that's not possible anyway

but it is possible to remember

everything you need to remember in such

a way that we can use that knowledge in

the way we need to and that is what the

system that I'll teach you helps you to

achieve so to start using the system we

have to understand that not all

information is equal in fact I break

down the information that I read into

five different categories using the

acronym

Pacer and it's important to be able to

identify which category the information

you're reading to belongs to because for

each category there are specific

targeted processes that then help you to

deal with and manage that information

more effectively and when we use the

wrong process for the specific category

of information it makes remembering and

understanding what you read much harder

much more timec consuming and much less

effective and that you're more likely to

forget what you read it also increases

the chance of you entering the passive

mode of reading which is where you get

to the bottom of a page and you can't

even remember what you just read so the

system goes like this in the first part

where we are consuming information we

want to identify which category what we

are consuming belongs to using the Pacer

acronym then during stage two we digest

what we have read using the targeted

process for that category which takes

the information and stores it in our

long-term memory through the process

called encoding so let's go through

Pacer together so that you can

accurately identify the category of

information you're trying to remember

the p and Pacer stands for

procedural and procedural information is

any information that tells you how

something should be executed for example

this is a book that I used during

medical school that taught me about how

to do a clinical examination like listen

to a heartbeat or take someone's blood

pressure and a lot of the information in

this book is about the correct technique

to perform the examination and some

subjects and domains have a lot of

procedural information some great

examples of this would be coding and

languages the targeted process for

working with with and mastering this

type of procedural information is

practice the key is that you want to

apply procedural information in real

life as early as possible a lot of

people will spend time to read it and

memorize it and write lots of notes

about it and then a week or two later

they'll try to practice it but by then

it's too late we've already forgotten a

lot of it and a lot of that time is just

wasted instead as soon as you take that

procedural information into your brain

try to apply it and practice it as early

as you can now straight away we run into

a problem with using this approach what

if we're reading something and we don't

have time to practice it right now the

answer is you either move on to

something else or you stop consuming

anything and you wait until you have

time to practice it but you do not waste

your time trying to just memor memorize

it on the spot because here is the

crucial part about learning that

everyone overlooks the two stages of

consuming and digesting must always be

balanced everything you consume must be

digested in order for you to retain and

use it only when stage one is followed

by stage two does learning actually

occur if we're reading something and we

don't have time time to use the right

process like practice then most people

will say oh well I don't have time right

now I'm just going to get through as

much of it as I can and they spend more

time reading and reading and essentially

just consuming more and more but this is

the learning equivalent of overeating

they haven't had a chance to digest it

so they're just going to end up vomiting

it all up again through the mental

vomiting process we call forgetting

which is why for most people the amount

that they forget after reading is

extremely high with some studies

suggesting that up to

90% of what is consumed is forgotten

despite hours of consuming and if we're

forgetting 90% of what we read rather

than consuming more and taking time away

from the digesting it actually makes

more sense to spend less time consuming

and more time on the digesting and

processing this increases your retention

with which therefore increases the

amount of working knowledge you're able

to build so earlier I said what goes

into your brain is less important than

what stays in your brain and this

principle of balancing stage one

consuming with stage two digesting is

important not just for procedural

information but for every other category

of PESA unfortunately stage two

digesting is almost completely neglected

for the second category of in the a of

Pacer which stands for

analogous analogous information is

actually one of the easiest types of

information to work with and remember

and apply because analogous information

is the information that is related to

something you already have prior

knowledge about and even if we don't

have direct prior knowledge about it it

may remind us indirectly of something

that we do have knowledge about for

example let's say that we are an avid

swimmer and we're learning about the

physiology of a muscle contraction when

we look at that muscle contraction cycle

we might think hey that reminds me a lot

about the swimming technique I use and

by connecting the new information about

muscle contraction physiology with what

we already know our swimming technique

we have created

an analogy and so that is analogous

information and analogies can form with

any prior knowledge including knowledge

within a topic itself in most fields of

study there are Concepts or patterns of

Concepts and relationships that tend to

repeat and recur throughout that field

you might have learned about how to

solve a particular type of problem last

semester and now this semester this new

problem solving approach that you're

learning for the first time reminds you

a lot of that old problem solving

process and relating those two

approaches is also an analogy so when

we're engaging in stage one the

consumption period of reading we want to

actively be thinking about whether what

we are reading is related to something

that we already have knowledge about and

once we identify it as potentially

analogous information the targeted

process we want to use here is critique

this is the part I said everyone misses

once we create an analogy critiquing it

means we examine critically how good

that analogy actually is for example

with the analogy of muscle contraction

and swimming technique critiquing that

analogy means asking ourselves in what

way specifically are these two things

similar or related to each other in what

ways are they different in what

situation does this analogy not make

sense anymore and if there are a lot of

differences or a lot of conditions and

situations where the analogy breaks

apart then is there a better analogy or

can we extend or modify that analogy to

make it more comprehensive and more

accurate this critiquing process

massively drives up our attention and

depth of understanding of this new

information and the reason this works is

because instead of new information just

being new information that your brain

doesn't know what to do with we're

actually extending it from what we

already know we're taking our existing

Network and connecting it to the new

information straight away which is the

reason why creating analogies has been

shown in studies repeatedly to be so

powerful for our retention and

understanding now at this point you

might be looking at the system and

thinking this seems a little forced it

doesn't feel natural and you're right in

fact it's crucial that you understand

that this is not natural and that's why

it works if you have no time pressure

and it doesn't matter how well you learn

something then you can learn and read

however you want but unfortunately what

research has shown is that there are

clear biological limitations of the

human brain to how much it can consume

and store into our memory in one go and

in the modern day when there is so much

we have to learn it is very very easy to

exceed that biological limit and then

get overwhelmed learning is extremely

complicated so to be able to learn a lot

in a short amount of time reach a high

level of knowledge a lot of processes

need to go right and this is why most

people will Plateau on their learning

ability and after a point not really

improve for the rest of their lives for

me figuring out what processes to care

about and therefore what to improve on

and then how to even execute on those

correctly took me at least 7 or 8 years

of almost constant experimentation and

reading of research and coaching people

to see what works for them and honestly

I got lucky because 10 15 years ago a

lot of the research didn't even exists

which is why to make it easier for you

I've started a free Weekly Newsletter I

take everything that I've learned that

helps you become a more efficient

learner the things that have the highest

chance of giving you success in a short

amount of time and I packaged them in a

way that you can take and Implement into

your own learning in less than 10 15

minutes if you want to sign up to the

newsletter it's completely free I'll

leave a link in the description for you

now getting back to peser you might

notice that the way that I've written

the a in PESA is is like this it's this

kind of strange shape there the reason

is because a the analogous information

can exist within as a subset of

procedural information for example you

could create an analogy on a set of

instructions to make it simpler and

easier for you to understand and then

later you go and practice it but

analogous information also exists as a

subset within the next category of

information which is the C of Paca and

this stands for

conceptual if procedural information is

the how to do something then conceptual

information is the what and for most

science subjects the majority of what

you need to learn is conceptual

conceptual information includes facts

and explanations theories and principles

relationships between Concepts and ways

that that concept can be applied and in

most cases we need both the procedural

and the conceptual knowledge to solve a

problem and apply our knowledge properly

for example although this book goes

through how to listen to someone's heart

I still need to have the conceptual

knowledge about what I'm listening to to

be able to analyze that and make a

conclusion on the diagnosis so when we

identify that a piece of text we're

reading is conceptual type information

the process we want to use straight away

is

mapping

nonlinear network based note taking such

as mind mapping is an efficient way of

increasing your attention and Mastery of

conceptual knowledge because conceptual

knowledge inherently exists in a network

although a textbook or a lecture might

be delivered word after word in a linear

format if we look at the mind and

knowledge of the person that wrote that

textbook it doesn't exist in a linear

sentence by sentence structure their

knowledge and expertise exists in a

highly connected network of information

there is no innate sequence of

information an expert can start at any

point and navigate to any other point

this is what allows an expert to do

complex problem solving because they can

look at a problem understand what

concepts are related and see how those

Concepts connect together to solve the

problem whereas a beginner who's only

learned it at a surface level just sees

individual separated Concepts and they

don't understand how they link together

as a learner our job is not to remember

the sequence word for word our job is to

try to recreate that network of

knowledge that the expert had and

mapping is such a great technique

because it forces us to not only think

about each fact and concept but also how

they connect to each other to form a

bigger picture so when you are reading

and consuming take some time to get out

a piece of paper or a tablet and make a

map of the things that you're learning

and as you read more you add more to

your map you move things around you

reorganize things as you read more you

also digest more and your map grows

remember analogous information can also

exist within conceptual information so

you might find Opportunities within

conceptual information to create some

analogies and you might want to add

those into your map as well even if the

analogy doesn't make its way into the

map it could give you an idea in terms

of how you want to structure your ideas

on your map now here's that same problem

again let's say you reading but you

don't have time to draw a map or maybe

you don't have anything to map on while

you're reading then again we need to

slow down and consume less so that

consumption and digestion can stay

balanced and if you don't you'll just

end up overwhelmed again and wasting

time because not only are you going to

forget a lot of what you are consuming

but now you've given the future version

of you more work to do by having to go

and figure out what your forgotten and

then Rec consume it again anyway now the

good news is that the digesting of

procedural analogous and conceptual

information is easily the most timec

consuming the E and the r of PESA are

much faster and easier to deal with I

talk about e and are together because

they're both very similar to each other

but pay close attention because the two

are actually so similar to each other

that most people never distinguish

between the two and that can lead

directly to hours of wasted time per

week the E and Pacer stands for

evidence evidence type information is

the information that helps make

conceptual information more concrete

they're often very detailed sometimes

very technical pieces of information but

they're useful because we can use these

facts or statistics or cases as examples

to prove a conceptual point for example

we could understand

conceptually how World War I started but

we also need to know the evidence

information of date certain specific

events occurred between which specific

people at which specific location to

make that concept more concrete and the

key process for evidence type

information is to

store and

rehearse store means that you just colle

collect that information and note it

down somewhere you could add it to your

conceptual map you could add it to a

second brain system using something like

notion or Rome or obsidian or you can

put it onto flashcards you could even

just write them down on a document

somewhere with all the other things that

you are storing this should happen as

soon as you identify it so as you are

consuming the information and you

identify that this piece of information

is an Evidence type we go ahead and

straight away store it the rehearsing

part of it comes a little later we put

aside time to do the rehearsal and

rehearsing the information is the key to

improving our retention of evidence type

information rehearsing means that we

think about how we will need to use this

piece of information how are we going to

apply it what type of conceptual

information is this an example of we

then challenge ourselves by using an

applying that information in the way

that we will need to use it this means

solving problems or writing detailed

answers to questions or creating

explanations teaching it to other people

or maybe writing essays that use that

piece of evidence as a supporting

example for a wider concept and so while

we store the information while we

consume it the rehearsing happens later

maybe at the end of the day or at the

end of the week but do not waste time

while you are cons assuming trying to

just memorize and read and reread and

writing copious notes on that piece of

information otherwise you are not going

to have enough time for the PA and C the

first three types of information which

is what forms the foundation of

knowledge that the evidence type needs

to build off of in the first place now

evidence type information is very

similar to the final type which is the r

of PESA and this stands for

reference type information reference

information is the easiest to deal with

it is all of the Nitty Gritty very

specific detailed bits of information

that don't really change your conceptual

understanding they're not particularly

that important they're not analogous and

they're not procedural but for whatever

reason we might need to know this later

this might be something like the exact

value of a mathematical con Conant or a

specific Gene involved in a particular

mutation or the name of a very specific

molecule of a disease or maybe a list of

attributes used to define a variable for

coding and the process we use to deal

with this type of information is the

same as for evidence almost it's store

and rehearse the same

things the storing part exactly the same

you Chuck it in a second brand and your

flash cards wherever makes sense for you

but if you need to be able to record

this information from memory and you

can't like refer back to your notes when

you need to use it then you probably

want to use something like flash cards

because the rehearse part is a little

different because reference type

information is by definition not very

conceptually important anyway it's quite

hard to use this for problem solving or

as part of like an extended discussion

or answer the way we're probably going

to use this information is just Direct

fact recoil which is why something like

flash cards using a space repetition

active recoil strategy like an app like

ankey is going to be the best way to

handle reference type information so as

you're reading and you're thinking hey

this might be a reference type

information you dump it into your

flashcards and you put aside like 30

minutes every day or whatever to just go

through your flash cards to do your

rehearsal but please again

absolutely do not waste time while

you're reading trying to just read and

reread and write notes and just memorize

this information at the time you need to

use that time for the first three which

forms the bulk of your knowledge as I

said earlier there are a lot of things

that need to go right to be able to

learn a lot of information in a short

period of time and wasting time on

trying to memorize reference information

while you are reading it instead of

spending that time on the first three

types is one of the worst offenders and

as soon as you get into that mind frame

of reading something and then rereading

it again trying to get it into your head

you can say goodbye to your learning

efficiency so now you know the five

types of information for you to try to

identify as you consume in stage one and

the appropriate targeted process that

will help you to digest that information

in stage two and the key to be able to

retain a lot and have a good high level

of knowledge for what you have consumed

is to keep that stage one and stage two

balanced however when it comes to

learning efficiently this just scratches

the surface in fact if you look at this

map of learning that outlines the major

processes that you need to be a

consistently High performing efficient

learner what we talked about today is

like barely a few percent of it so if

you want to start unpacking what those

other processes look like without having

to dedicate

a decade of your life to uh learning

about it like I did then make sure to

check out my free newsletter the link is

in the description thank you so much for

watching and I will see you in the next

one