Remember More Without Trying Too Hard

Memory is a tricky beast. You might sit and study for hours on end, but for some reason it never seems to stick with you. However, as Time points out, implicit learning relies on three factors that are easy to control.

Image: Marcin Wichary.

Improving your implicit learning means you can essentially digest a large amount of information without realising you’re doing it. You’ll need to do three things when studying or learning a new skill:

1. Give your mind plenty of material: This might seem obvious, but immersing yourself completely in what you’re trying to learn is the first step to actually learning it. You don’t have to actively try to memorise things, just expose yourself to the skill or material as much as possible.
2. Practice: We tend to stop practicing a skill or stop studying when we thing “we’ve got it”. However, well after we learn something we still continue to refine that skill.
3. Sleep: It’s thought that sleep is essential to learning and remembering. Some studies have suggested that the brain identifies patterns in our memories and consolidates them to make them permanent when we’re sleeping. In essence, a good night of rest might be better than an all-night study-fest.

In the end, it’s less about forcing yourself to study something non-stop, but rather to keep it in front of you whenever you can. Practice always helps, but you don’t always have to actively try to remember something. Head over to Time for a full breakdown of the science behind implicit learning and a few examples of how it works.

Remember More Without Trying [Time]