How do you retain information in your head when reading?

Lounge
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I just read a chapter on Anxiety in a recommended Autism book.

If I was quizzed on this right now I would fail completely to tell you what I read.

Sometimes I find that I do remember bits of the information as my brain is processing stuff.

My concern is that if I cannot retain information from books that I will be wasting my time even reading them.

I don’t know how other people store this kind of information when reading.

Should you be able to immediately remember and be able to answer questions if someone was to ask?

I am pretty annoyed with myself. I read 40 pages

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I’m improved cognitively.
I can read hundreds of pages at once.

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Ah, read more slowly with pen and paper at hand. Take notes. This HAS to be by hand, people who type notes don’t have the same retention as those who write them out. Try this and then test yourself again. You’ll notice a difference.

:blush:

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How did you achieve this?

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@shutterbug I read really slowly. One word at a time voiced by my thoughts.

I will try again but making notes.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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I really don’t know. Negatives and cognitives are better than ever

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I am really pleased for you Om. I hope you continue your road to recovery.

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I should probably mention I have not picked up a book in nearly 8 years since I left college.

My main focus for this amount of time has been developing myself at work to be a data analyst, but that is now a closed chapter in my life as I don’t do this job any more.

I have until 28th September to get my head around my recent Autism diagnosis, and try to get my medications sorted out. That’s when I am due to train as a nurse, which from what I have seen is 47% coursework, 47% practical and 6% exams

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I’ve gotten better at retaining info without writing, but I think it was the writing that helped me form the connections initially. It was a psychiatrist who told me to try this many moons ago and it worked. Slowly at first and then I kept getting better with practice. The other thing I like to do is to write quizzes for myself based on what I’ve read. I’ve gotten good enough at it over the years that I can anticipate exam questions on studied material with a fair degree of accuracy now.

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Thanks for sharing @shutterbug your input is appreciated.

I have chores to do now, but I will try this methodology later on.

:+1:

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Being a data analyst or a nurse is probably infinitely harder than reading a simple book. You are a smart guy! I was always impressed by your data analyst job. I couldn’t do it here. I’m not qualified. You must be good with math. When I think Data analyst, I think like Data Scientist or something. It’s not like you did data entry or something.

Just read some books and reread some sentences, try to picture the meaning, and take notes and perhaps do a book report or something. Read something that interests you. You don’t need to be an expert on the book, unless it’s for school or something.

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I think it depends on what you are reading. I would have some difficulty reading and retaining anxiety information. Reading a story you can paint a mental picture makes it a lot easier to understand and retain. I graduated college but retained almost zilch.

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LS! To better remember what I have read I write book reviews. One time many were also published in magazines.

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Thanks! I was proud of getting that far from packing envelopes as a temp. It was really rewarding that I got to what I aspired to and respected.

It’s a shame it couldn’t continue due to office politics pushing me away from the support I had from having family in the business.

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