Remember anything

Modern notetaking tools give us the ability to remember anything, for essentially free. We’re never far away from a computer or phone, and taking notes digitally makes them searchable later. Of course we still forget to look at our notes, and or what keywords we filed them under. To keep important information top of mind, we can review notes with spaced repetition – reviewing flash cards at regular intervals – which improves memory by 82%. Pair this with active recall – testing if you can answer from scratch – which grants 45% better understanding. There’s also ‘memory palaces’ – imagining a familiar building and storing information in each room – a technique used by 9/10 contestants in the World Memory Championships.

Now we can remember anything, should we? Deciding to deliberately remember something is Kahneman’s System 2 (conscious brain) dictating to System 1 (unconscious brain) what’s important. Our conscious brain is what we think of as “us”, but 98% of our thinking happens unconsciously. System 2 is deliberate, analytical and unemotional. That doesn’t mean rational. What economists call ‘irrational’ behaviors or ‘biases’ are memes that helped us survive for 10,000 years. As per the Lindy Effect they’re likely to prevail 10,000 more. Not all goals are equally valid or useful. If you memorize 17,500 species of butterfly, it won’t do much for you. Memory champions are rarely millionaires. If your brain keeps forgetting something, or you’re procrastinating learning it, maybe that’s telling you something.