How to (actually) REMEMBER What You Read - 7 Tips

I basically learn for a living. I read lots and lots of books, journal articles, philosophy and theology papers, and I talk about ideas with the authors on my podcast or I present the ideas to you on this channel, or I synthesize my own ideas for my Substack audience. So it's very important for me to remember what I've read. As I've become a better researcher, I've discovered at least 7 ways to help myself remember what I've read and in this video I share those with you.

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0:00 - Overview
1:20 - Write in your books (Marginal Notes)
7:56 - Reader's Compendium
10:31 - Personal Reader's Dictionary
11:50 - Reading Log
13:24 - Book of Book Reviews (and Précis)
15:21 - Commonplace Books (4 kinds)
17:51 - Active Recall
19:22 - Only for the Real Ones!

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

[HawkeyeVoid]

Something really helpful with marginal notes is when I find an empty page in the front or end of the book. When I mark something impactful, I go to the empty page, write a short phrase describing it and the page number so I can go back to that exact quote later. It’s soooo useful because there’s an index of quotes that are recorded in the book itself.

[sowercookie]

It must be a cultural difference that people don't write in their books, because I've been told to underline, circle, highlight, scribble, dogear, do everything I can in my books by teachers and elders my whole life. When my grandpa passed it was fascinating getting all his books and finding almost every page filled with his thoughts, they really are a treasure and I hope my books can be that way for my descendants.

[coltoncarlson]

From a different pan, it has been proven by educational psychologists that marking up the text that you are reading and interacting with your notes that way greatly increases your chances of processing that information into your long-term memory. So, I whole-heartedly agree: mark your books!

Fantastic video, Parker.

[euruskreacatoa]

Hey ParkNotes! I only discovered you recently but thanks to you and your notebook system ive never felt so productive in my life. You genuinely saved my curiosity and goals and one day I will achieve them and it will be thanks to you.

[DOLrd]

Dune Messiah is my favorite too! It's so epic! The throne room scene, the palace imagery, trippiness as his prescience matures and the events after the stoneburner are all some of my favorite things in the series

[allen]

We have our older homeschool students, ninth to twelvth grade, write lesson plans and teacher's guides. They really enjoy this and seemingly mature faster than their public school counterparts, nemeses. Our motto is a question: "Is it useful?" Beyond this we cite Abraham Flexner: "Use from useless things." We encourage something from Adler and Hutchins: "The Great Conversation." Think, speak, write. And always listen.

[amokbel]

📚 I like this idea of notebooks for different topics. Makes me feel like I’m back in school where I had a different notebook per topic. The main difference is that the topics are not things I am actually interested to learn about.

[buffjenni]

i love your content, you're literally my fav youtuber - keep on going! 💪

[gobgaming]

📚 Thanks for further igniting my strive for knowledge. Recently I’ve been at a loss of what to read and why even read, but your videos have been helping me rediscover the why and my love of wisdom. Thanks brother!

[fional]

I came across your channel about a month ago and I just want to say a big thank you for the ideas you’re sharing. Since watching your videos I’ve started a commonplace book and a personal proverbs book. These are in addition to my personal journal and book reading records I have used for several years. Having a more deliberate method for interacting with the nonfiction texts I read has really helped me retain more of that information. It reminds me of how much I enjoyed it when I did my honours degree in Sociology about 12 years ago.

[kenfujita]

Your video always encourages me to learn philosophy. I am not an English native speaker, but your video is very clear and easy to understand for me. Thanks a lot!

[Katiedora]

I watch a lot of booktube content, and it definitely inspired me to start a reading journal. There are so many different ways of setting it up (some people are super into tracking all the minute stats of what they read, and others just want a really aesthetic memory page), and I've tried a few different ways over the past few years. I read a pretty high volume of books in every format, and I like writing out reviews for books I really loved or really hated, but I think keeping up with my quote book is the most consistent thing I do. I've got a variety of highlighters, tabs, and sticky notes decorating most of my physical books, though.

[HimaniK]

📚 Thanks to you. After watching your videos I've started maintaining pocket notebooks and commonplace notebooks which are helping me a lot specially pocket notebook. From the past few months I've been writing in my pocket notebook and it is a good substitute for a mobile phone in leisure and it helped me a lot to get some clarity in my thoughts. There a lot more things which I have to learn from you and your channel. Have a good day!

[Gruso]

I would love a shelf tour. It seems you have a lot to show and I think it would be interesting.

[Palopoli]

hey parker, I'm from brazil and about a month ago (inspired by you) I started a commonplace book and a catch all notebook. And now i'm all into it and already having a lot of ideas to buy and use more pocket notebooks. Thank you a lot and keep going!

[mohammedbelemgarni]

I really love the techniques you shared. I need to adopt one of those as soon as possible! ❤✨

[trevorlane]

📚 great stuff super helpful and inspirational.

[secretaryisabelle]

📚 Thank you for another informative video, good sir! I take notes on my commonplace book whenever I watch your videos to remember and re-read 😊 All the best in your pursuits!

[bujobyfilo]

Hey, notebook addict here from Spain! I love your channel, it's very interesting and I appreciate that you express yourself in a very natural way.
I started with a journal, then added a bullet journal and then a reading journal, and now I'm starting something that could be what you call a commonplace book for other deep reflexions.
So I think I'm in the right place :)

[andyscoles]

📚 I've struggled with writing in books for so long...I was always taught not to, and I've always been concerned that underlining or making notes would be more distracting than helpful. But maybe I can adopt some of those symbols you mentioned -- subtle marginalia -- and keep my actual notes somewhere else. Also, ironically, the need to take notes and read slowly often keeps me from reading at all because it feels like a chore to sit down with a book. And yet it's still so easy for me to forget what I read if I just read without taking notes (at least in nonfiction books).