09/17/2026
For years, I thought I was a slow learner because I found it difficult to recall what I had just read a few minutes ago.
It was so bad that I would forget someone's name five minutes after meeting them, and I could not remember anything I was taught the previous day.
I used to hide behind the excuse of "I'm not intelligent enough." Turns out, the problem wasn't with my intelligence - it was with the way I learned things.
The moment I changed the way I learn and study, my brain started improving and became more retentive.
Here is how I learned to remember things faster and longer.
1. I stopped reading passively:
Most people read through a book like they're scrolling through a social media feed. They don't pause to interact with what they're studying.
If you want to remember what you read faster and for longer, you have to start interacting with the information.
For example:
When reading a book on "How to Communicate Like a Pro," don't just read all the pages through. Take a break, ask yourself questions about the part you just read, visualize it, and imagine yourself teaching it to someone else.
2. I teach what I learn:
Most times, I would read a topic and get overly confident that I understood it. But when it came to teaching that topic, I struggled and panicked because I hadn't fully understood it.
So, after learning anything, I would write it down, explain it to a friend, or explain it to myself.
By doing this, I was strengthening my understanding of the topic.
Note: If you cannot explain something clearly, you probably don't understand it deeply yet.
3. I stopped studying for long hours:
I used to sit for hours to study because I believed that studying for long hours meant I was learning more. But turns out it was a lie. Studying for long hours only makes the brain tired and numb.
I stopped studying for longer hours when I discovered that the brain learns best in short periods of intense focus. So, instead of sitting for hours, I study for 45 minutes, take a break, and resume after a while.
Note: 45 focused minutes of studying is better than 4 distracted hours.
4. I started using “active recall”:
I used to reread my notes repeatedly for hours. Then after a while, I would close my notebook and call it reading. But a few days later, I would find it difficult to recall most of what I read. I didn't know that by rereading repeatedly, I was training my brain to recognize the information - but not to recall it.
So, I started reading for a few minutes. When I read for a few minutes, I would pause, close the book, and try to explain what I just read from memory.
At first, it felt difficult, but over time, it strengthened my brain's ability to recall information because the brain remembers information better when it's forced to retrieve it.
