When you spend three weeks reading a book, and a month later somebody asks you about it and you can't remember a thing you read. What's your feeling? Does it make you wonder why you wasted time on it?
There are some effective ways to learn. And when I say "to learn effectively", what I mean is to not just build up knowledge, but to learn to use it effectively. Something is not truly learned until it changes you in some way.
● Memory is based on connections
Mentor Box is my favourite online book club. It will send you books to read and study materials related (关联) to them: The materials can help you put what you've learnt into good use and make you remember things quickly. You can also do this on your own. When you come across something interesting in a book, write down its connections with something in your life — how it explains something, how you can use it to deal with problems.
● Read in a right way
People believe they have to read everything line by line. This is not true. When you buy a book, you're not buying the words, you're buying the useful ideas. The point of a book is to get the information that is important to you, not to finish it or to understand every word. What matters is key idea. Once you've received that idea, there's no reason to force yourself to sit there and read the rest.
● Ask the right questions
Everything you read should be questioned. You can question the writer's ideas, whether they're explaining information correctly. When reading something you agree with, you can ask yourself, "Is it possible that this could be wrong? "Asking the right questions will decide the depth of your knowledge and understanding, not the ability to remember a lot of facts and numbers.
