# Remembering What You Read: Beyond the Book {% hint style="info" %} Note: There's not much here yet. What follows is an outline of some things I plan to add. {% endhint %} Notes / thoughts: * Improving understanding & integrating knowledge—addressed in previous sections—goes a long way towards improving retention, so you can't really separate this stuff out. * I should mention spaced repetition & forgetting curves * Thoughts on just-in-time reading? (Sometimes BS?) Other fringe thoughts: * When is it better to *forget* what you read? In what cases does forgetting improve the quality of your thinking? ## A Short Tour of Memory Unfortunately, when it comes to retention, the report is pretty abysmal. * Study 1: Student Retention Rates Luckily, most people read in a *terrible* manner. We can look at this in two parts. * Understanding * Retention ## Improving Understanding Notes: * Why highlighting doesn't work * Using marginalia & connecting ideas (improving the mental web) ## Improving Retention It helps a lot to make sure you test you * Spaced repetition * Using your knowledge frequently * Putting things on maintenance --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://thepolymathproject.gitbook.io/reading/remembering.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.