Whether information technology's Facebook content, Nib Gates' favorite book, or the latest critical business report, nigh of united states enjoy reading or have to do quite a bit of it through the mean solar day. Simply in the rush to do everything in less time, yous might be missing a crazily simple mode to commit more content to memory:

Just go dorsum and give yourself a lilliputian time to reflect on what you just read.

Now, when I say "reflect," I don't mean sit in that location pondering for an 60 minutes. I mean sitting only long plenty to

  • Mentally identify the main points or concepts
  • Jot downward some notes (y'all tin't write everything, and so this forces your encephalon to choose what'south near important)
  • Consider the ramifications or implications of the content
  • Think about how the content connects to your personal preferences, personality, and experiences

Why information technology works.


As Allison Preston, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin, explains in this 2014 research written report release,

We think replaying memories during rest makes those earlier memories stronger, non but impacting the original content, merely impacting the memories to come up. [...] Nil happens in isolation. When y'all are learning something new, you bring to mind all of the things you know that are related to that information. In doing so, you embed the new data into your existing noesis.

With this in mind, when you give yourself a few minutes to rest and think about what yous just ingested from the folio, you're allowing your brain to better connect the new information to what you've already washed or understand. And because the brain is wired to reply to emotions quickly and efficiently, connecting them to memory germination and the estimation of facts and rational thought, if you can allow yourself to really acknowledge and respond to what you feel during your reading reflections, you lot stand a meliorate chance of the new memories being more powerful and easier to think.

The myth of lost time.


I can hear you protesting from hither.

"I barely have time to apply the restroom! How am I supposed to have fourth dimension to reflect on what I read?"

I get it. Merely when yous can retrieve information from your content better, y'all really can end upward saving fourth dimension. Y'all don't have to go back and look upward as many facts or ideas, and whether it's rubbing elbows with some large shots at a conference or explaining your rationale for a new process to your squad, you can employ the data on the fly better. From this standpoint, reading reflection is an efficiency booster and worth the few brief minutes it takes.

More ways to level up.


To actually get the nigh out of your reading and reading reflection, at that place are a few other add-on tricks you can try. You might desire to

  • Read some of the content aloud or depict images for the principal ideas. The brain doesn't procedure the dissimilar types of sensory information in isolation from each other, so honing in on auditory or visual information might help you procedure the content.
  • Read when you are more than rested. Fatigue tin negatively influence your ability to focus, so pick a reading time where y'all experience energized.
  • Eliminate distractions. While turning off phone alerts or shutting your door are obvious distraction points, don't forget about other factors, such every bit room temperature, hunger, and your position in your chair.
  • Be articulate about your goal. Knowing the purpose behind what you're reading tin can brand it easier to feel motivated and engaged with the content.
  • Go for a hard copy. Researchers from the University of Oregon institute that online content is harder to retrieve. 1 theory is that the disappear-reappear nature of online content is distracting, but the loss of tactile data, such as the feeling of the page, might contribute, likewise.

No thing how long your reflection time might happen to concluding, just read. Read anything. It's by far one of the easiest things you can do to boost your intelligence and stay on tiptop of your game.