So the school year is approaching, and with it the all too familiar (bitter sweet) realization that the end of summer approaches in lockstep1. I was just reminded of this on an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast, very strategically released I might add, about techniques for learning.
I'll save you the time of having to listen to the entire thing: testing and quizzing yourself is the best way to retain information.
Suffice to say, I will be implementing techniques related to this insight going forward. But this also got me thinking about why it is that testing yourself proves to be such an effective tool.
It makes intuitive sense that if we're called upon to recall a certain bit of information on a consistent basis, we'll remember that information much better. Hence why things becomes seocond nature after consistency and repition (which is honestly an homage to habits but is also relevant for memory). The more you use information, the more you will retain it. So you can test yourself, or you can teach others, or you can just practice remembering it, really anything to teach yourself that this information is important.
That's a pretty base assumption, and on top of that, any number of different techniques can be instituted to improve learning2.
So really if you look at it, all the information you store in your head has an associated 'stickiness' to it, and the more you use it, the stickier it gets.
This totally reminded me of a recent coding question I had completed that involved creating a simple LRU (least recently used) cache. The more you access a certain value, the farther you stave off its disposal.
And this really brought this thought full circle, because the real crux of learning doesn't come from endlessly devouring knowledge, but instead from preventing yourself from forgetting the information you decide you want to retain.
So being highly civilized and advanced LRU caches, we can wield this knowledge of internal mechanisms to take control of our circuitry and finally achieve all our grandest learning objectives.
What are my objectives you may ask? I haven't thought about them recently enough.
The liminal space right before summer or right before the school year is always filled with so much emotion. My theory is that it's related to the fresh start effect and all the latent emotion and deeply ingrained association that is baked into both time periods. ↩
Look at me also recalling this information by writing it down, I knew I learned something. ↩