PDF Summary:The Master Guides: Supercharge Your Memory, by Shortform

Whether you're studying for exams, seeking to retain more general knowledge, or aiming to boost workplace productivity, a sharper memory is key to your success.

In this Master Guide, we’ll explore how to supercharge your memory. Our guide compiles memory-retention methods from a diverse group of experts, ranging from seasoned educators and cognitive scientists to a magician and a former winner of the US Memory Championships. These methods cover how to:

• Leverage your brain’s natural affinity for association by linking new information to familiar concepts or experiences.
• Apply active learning strategies to deepen comprehension and fortify memory retention and recall.

You'll come away with proven techniques and a newfound confidence in your ability to capture, retain, and recall information effectively.

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Bowler’s visualization technique is to connect elements of a concept to parts of a physical object. This way, when you look at the object, it will help you remember the elements of the concept. For example, connect the three main stages of the hydrologic cycle to your water bottle: First is evaporation—you can connect this stage to the top part of your water bottle that’s foggy because of evaporation. Next is condensation—you can connect this to the water droplets inside your bottle and imagine that they’re the product of condensation, like raindrops. Finally, connect precipitation to the water sitting at the bottom of your bottle—imagine this is the rainwater that has fallen and collected.

3) Activate Your Emotions

Information is easily forgotten; however, Kwik argues, feelings are memorable. If you can add emotions to what you’re learning—make it exciting, adventurous, or poignant—then you’ll be much more likely to remember it. You’ve probably experienced this phenomenon before: Think back to a time when you got some extraordinary piece of news (either good or bad). You probably remember where you were and what you were doing at the time, even if it was many years ago.

Foer suggests you can add emotions to written material by breaking sections of a text into small chunks and assigning them emotions rather than images alone. For example, when studying the water cycle, you could associate each phase with a distinct emotion: Link evaporation to "curiosity" as the water ascends, condensation with "togetherness" as droplets merge to form clouds, and precipitation with "joy" as water joyfully returns to the Earth.

4) Punning

Foer recommends punning as another practical method for creating multisensory associations. It involves changing an abstract word into a concrete word by using rhymes or puns. You can also employ alliteration or repetition. For example, to remember the title of the book The Joy of Cooking, you might picture a boy who’s good-looking. Additionally, punning can be used to memorize word-for-word. For example, mental athletes—those who compete in mental challenges—assign images to words like “and” and “the” and then picture a string of images to remember the exact words. One German mnemonist remembers the word “and” by picturing a circle because the German word for round, “rund,” rhymes with “and.”

Technique #3: Take Notes About Your Notes

Oakley and Schewe suggest that actively engaging with your content—by taking notes about your notes—enhances the effectiveness of your note-taking. This involves:

Simplifying the information you’re working with: Think of easier words to describe the concept and focus on the main ideas rather than getting lost in the details. One way to do this is to use mind maps to organize your notes. Mind maps are visual representations of topics that typically start with a central idea or concept and branch into related ideas connected with lines, colors, and images. By visually organizing the material, mind maps help distill complex information into more digestible components, making it easier to identify and remember key points.

Taking notes with the dual-column method: Divide your note page into two parts with a vertical line down the center. Capture the key concepts on the right side and summarize them on the left using short phrases.

Kwik also recommends that you add highlights and additional notes to the original ones to actively engage with them and spotlight key points. For example, write down comments and questions that come to mind as you read.

Part 2: Apply Active Learning Strategies

Once you’ve taken notes, the next step is to actively engage with them to help solidify the information in your long-term memory. Oakley and Schewe explain that actively engaging with your learning materials helps you absorb far more information than when you passively engage with them. This is because active learning helps build longer and stronger neural connections.

Experts suggest three active learning strategies: Practice spaced repetition, test yourself with active recall, and teach what you’ve learned.

Technique #1: Practice Spaced Repetition

Your brain remembers information best by engaging with it repeatedly over time—this popular concept is called “spaced repetition.” Bowler explains that the more time that passes after you learn something, the more information you forget. The key to overcoming this is to review the information again right before you’re about to forget it. Keep doing this each time you feel you’re close to forgetting the material. Each time you review it, you’ll be able to remember the information for longer, eventually fully ingraining it into your long-term memory.

Novelist and former management consultant Peter C. Brown and cognitive scientists Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel (Make It Stick) offer additional insights on the benefits of spaced repetition. Instead of focusing on one skill or topic at a time—a strategy called massed practice—spaced practice gives your brain the time it needs to strengthen new knowledge and store it in your long-term memory through a process called consolidation.

There are two strategies you can use to space your memory-retrieval practice:

1) Diversify Your Studies

The first strategy for spacing your practice is to diversify your studies among multiple related topics or skills. For example, if you're learning how to calculate volumes of different geometric shapes, mix up the problems—doing a sphere problem, then a cube problem, then another sphere problem—instead of grouping your practice problems by shape. Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel explain that diversifying in this way helps you make mental connections to the other subjects you mix in. They stress that the key to this approach is to switch to the next skill or concept before you’ve finished practicing one. It feels frustrating to switch gears before you’re ready, but this method improves your long-term retention.

Oakley and Sejnowski also recommend this method because, just like taking a multisensory approach or making up metaphors, diversifying your studies helps you learn the material better by connecting what you’re learning to more neural pathways and building more synapse connections.

2) Study in a Variety of Locations

The second strategy for spacing your practice is to study in a variety of locations. According to Oakley and Sejnowski, when you only study a certain subject in a single place, your brain may make neural connections between that subject and that place. These connections make it harder to recall what you studied when you’re in a different setting (for example, if you only ever study in your bedroom, you might struggle to recall the information at a testing center). By studying a subject in a variety of environments, you ensure your brain doesn’t associate the subject with any particular environment—meaning you’ll be able to recall the information no matter where you are rather than only remembering it when you’re in a certain place.

In addition to studying in different locations, Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel suggest that you apply what you’re trying to memorize in different contexts. Doing so enhances your understanding of the underlying patterns and encourages your brain to think quickly and fluidly. For example, if you're memorizing Spanish phrases, try ordering food at a Spanish restaurant, watching Spanish movies, or chatting with native speakers in different social settings. Each context will force your brain to adapt and apply the language in unique ways, solidifying your understanding and recall.

Technique #2: Test Yourself With Active Recall

Kwik notes that many people try to learn new information by rote memorization: repeating something until it sticks. However, rote learning is ineffective because you’re basically trying to bully your brain into accepting the information. In contrast, active learning—actively participating in the learning experience—is much more effective (and enjoyable!) than rote memorization.

Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel add that rote memorization only commits the information you’re trying to memorize to your short-term memory, making it a waste of time in the long run. Instead, the most effective way to improve retention of new information is through retrieval practice, which is any exercise that requires you to recall what you’ve learned.

According to Oakley and Sejnowski, active recall (or retrieval practice) can take a variety of forms, depending on what you’re studying: If you’re memorizing facts, try to recite them or write them down from memory—don’t just reread them in your textbook or from your notes. If you’re learning a problem-solving technique, work through a problem with it—don’t just read an example solution. If you’re learning a hands-on skill, practice doing the work—don’t just watch someone else do it.

Experts suggest two especially effective active recall methods: Use flashcards and summarize from memory.

1) Use Flashcards

The first active recall method is to use flashcards. Bowler argues that flashcards are only effective when they force you to deeply engage with what you’re trying to memorize. One of the easiest ways to encourage this engagement is to create cards with a question on one side and an answer on the other—before flipping the card over, you must answer the question yourself. This will make studying with flashcards harder than simply flipping through your cards and rereading information.

Another technique is to use as many symbols as possible on your cards in place of words and phrases. Using symbols rather than words requires you to recall more information than what’s explicitly written on the card. For example, imagine you want to remember that the Rashidun Caliphate was the first caliphate and lasted the shortest amount of time, the Umayyad was second and lasted longer than the Rashidun, and the Abbasid was the last and lasted the longest. You could write “Rashidun < Umayyad < Abbasid.”

Your flashcards should help you make connections with concepts you already know—Bowler explains that using images and symbols you’re familiar with is a great way to do this. For example, to remember the order of three of the major Medieval Islamic caliphates—the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid—you could draw a picture of a radish to remind you of “Rashidun,” a picture of your friend Maya to remind you of “Umayyad,” and the name of the band Abba to remind you of “Abbasid.”

Finally, the key to boosting learning with flashcards is to study them repeatedly over time. For example, if you have an exam in one month, rather than waiting until the week before the exam and studying for 30 minutes every day, make your flashcards and start studying as soon as you find out about the exam.

Oakley and Sejnowski echo this advice, explaining that spreading study sessions over extended periods promotes long-term retention. This is because it gives the synapse chains that represent what you’re learning time to grow and solidify in your mind.

2) Summarize From Memory

The second active recall method is to summarize from memory. You can do this in one of three ways:

Take periodic recall breaks: Oakley and Schewe suggest that, during your review sessions, you should periodically look away from what you’re studying and try to remember what you just learned. This approach will help you internalize the concepts you're trying to memorize. Additionally, it will give you real-time feedback on how well you're absorbing new information.

Condense core ideas: Bowler recommends that you first condense a concept into its most crucial components from memory alone. Then, compare what you’ve written to your full notes to see how well you understand the concept and identify anything that you forgot or misrepresented.

“Blurt” everything out: Another method from Bowler is to write down every single thing you can remember about a concept. To do this, start by writing down a few words that will remind you of the concept. Then, use those prompts to jog your memory and write down everything you can remember about the concept. Once you’re done, compare your exercise to your notes and identify what you left out—these are likely the areas you need to work on.

Technique #3: Teach What You’ve Learned

Kwik suggests that you should study what you want to memorize with the intent to teach it to somebody else—and to actually teach it to another person if possible.

(Shortform note: Studies show that teaching others can help you retain what you’ve learned. In one study, students who taught others didn’t do significantly better in the short term than those who only learned the material themselves; however, when tested again a week later, those who had taught the material to other students remembered a great deal more of it. This is attributed to the protégé effect, a psychological phenomenon that boosts metacognitive processes. Teaching, or even pretending to teach to others, involves testing your knowledge and using it to inform others. This makes you more aware of your level of understanding and which areas you might need to improve in.)

Shortform Resources

For more advice on improving memory retention, see the following Shortform guides:

• Learning How to Learn, Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski
• Learn Like a Pro, Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe
• Limitless, Jim Kwik
• Make It Stick, Peter C. Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel
• The Memory Book, Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas
• Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer
• The Only Study Guide You’ll Ever Need, Jade Bowler
• Unlimited Memory, Kevin Horsley