How to learn from a book (maybe) | note-taking, visualizations, spacing | history example

Does anyone really know how to learn from a book? Here is a record of my first serious attempt to understand and remember what I was reading for the long term, along with various justifications (and rationalizations!) for what I did.

0:00 What I'm trying to do
0:50 What does it mean to learn from a book?
2:27 Writing down themes
4:27 The back-and-forth
6:01 The function of notes
7:01 Taking paths through the material
7:36 Why do my visualizations suck?
8:53 Getting precise
10:20 Why these (bad) visualizations?
11:14 Spacing things out
12:20 What I would do differently next time

REFERENCES:

The book is China: A History by John Keay.

My practices here come from a variety of sources, but here's some representative work.

On free recall and retrieval:

On the value of "spacing things out" AKA long inter-study intervals, see:

Acknowledgements:

[engtchr]

Benjamin, i have only recently found your videos, and I see that you have been at it for a while. As a teacher of English, I value the insights you bring to the human learning process. But what's really thrilling is to see that you are not static, you are always evolving. You analyze your own mental processes, which become part of the data that informs your persentations, I hope you are beginning to write the book about your personal learning development. Meanwhile, I'll be watching you and doing some active recall as I apply your insights to my own work.

[Rosannasfriend]

There are a lot of YouTuber, who teach you how to study, and how to learn, and do well in school… I must say with no exaggeration… You are the number one best I have ever seen. I say that as somebody who has been trying to learn from these Youtubers for 10 years now. You single-handedly have the best advice.

[levyb]

Hey Benjamin, I'm currently a physics grad student getting ready to take my qualifying exam for the third time. I have ADHD and struggle with organizing my learning, especially when I'm supposed to cover a broad range of topics. I would be really interested in learning more about your take on applying these learning tools when it's a struggle to organize your learning in the first place. Perhaps you can discuss ways to organize learning technical subjects at multiple levels, such as learning for the first time or refreshing. Anyway, great content and I'm looking forward to diving deeper into your catalog of videos!

[IgnisMage]

I really liked your explanation of the learning process of a dense history book. I appreciate that you highlighted your personal challenges and how you learned from them. Also found it useful, seeing how the same facts can be seen from different perspectives according to your learning objectives, and using multiple techniques in helping you make sense of them, find relationships, and incorporating other things you've talked about in other videos, like attention, free recall, self testing, digesting information. Great content :)

[farouk]

1. **Understand, Don’t Just Memorize**: Focus on really getting the ideas, not just memorizing facts. This means putting the ideas together in your head in a way that makes sense to you.
2. **Sort Your Info**: To get a topic, arrange and rearrange the info you have. This helps you see patterns and big ideas, which makes it easier to remember and understand.
3. **Start with What You Know**: Begin with the main ideas and what you already understand, then look up anything you’re missing. This creates a strong starting point for more learning.
4. **Mix Your Ideas with the Book**: Combine what you think with what the book says. This way, you see things from different sides and understand better.
5. **Think Critically with Notes**: Your notes should show how you're thinking through the material. Asking questions and analyzing the info helps you learn in a deeper way.
6. **Use Pictures and Maps**: Draw diagrams or maps to connect ideas visually. This can make it clearer how things fit together and help you remember.
7. **Look Back and Reflect**: Regularly think about what you’ve learned and how you learned it. This helps improve how you study.
8. **Apply What You Learn**: Use what you know in new situations. This shows you really understand and remember it better.
9. **Teach and Talk About It**: Explaining things to others, or even to yourself, really boosts your understanding. Talking with others can also give you new ideas.
10. **Review and Use Tools**: Go back to the material from time to time and use tools like ChatGPT or join discussions online. This keeps the learning strong over time and makes it deeper.

[redicent]

Ben, im a hs student whos always been so interested in neuroscience, and it was so fun to see you apply the concepts i knew about learning to learning from books. thank you for the great example!

[lucidlo]

I am so happy that you pronounced the Chinese names in actual Chinese pronunciations!

[gustavoseith]

Hello! Thank you for the video! I'm a med student, and books tend to be my main source of study. I usually take notes from the book I'm currently studying, test myself on that and - maybe the most important thing - I keep updating those notes with new knowledge from other books, my practice and tips from more experienced doctors. I'd very much appreciate new videos about the topic!

[Portubed]

I'd be interested if you reviewed apps like Obsidian Canvas (instead of Miro) and Readwise Reader for scheduled recall on book notes in particular! You can combine "writing for learning" with apps that do the visualization for you, or where the connections are done through "linking your thinking" but more through writing than fancy graphics (and can even be coded). It might be an excellent option for your own learning or "sense making through words", with a supportive infrastructure that gives you visualizations as an added bonus while you just write and connect things. You can always use paper to discard recalls but using software for permanent and connected notes!

[solivagant]

Finding this channel is like winning the lottery. If you truly internalize the information learnt here and manage to apply and refine it in a way that works for you, you’ll learn information, make sense of and retain it in a way that you would’ve never thought possible before. I don’t do this often but these videos are genuinely worth re-watching many times to truly get the point.

[nikolajurcakova]

Hello Benjamin, thank you very much for the video. I am currently in the process of studying physics and your methods have been helpful. I'm doing free recall and self-studying a lot and on lectures I'm only writing down equations which I come back to later. This video gave me the idea to experiment with semi-flashcards of equations and describing them later. I would definitely be interested in a follow-up video on the book studying topic.

[sharanjhaveri]

OMG, I just started doing the MIRO thing.
it is an incredible software and helps me mind map my knowledge because its how i think . LOVE YOUR STUFF

[HenockTesfaye]

I'm glad you talked about what's in the notes vs what's in the brain.

[andreaamado]

It would be great to have you layer on this first video. I'm particularly interested in how "learning from a book" would translate when it comes to other genres/topics - for example, what does this look like for medical students?

[yosmuc]

WOW ! Some of the things mentioned in this video are so important to keep in mind when we approach books. A challenging book that continues new information is a book we want to engage with in multiple ways, and read it more than once or twice, if we want to increase our understanding of the material.

[wilson]

Great! I would love more videos along these lines (how best to learn from books, especially books that are concept heavy like history, philosophy, etc.. rather than data heavy like science, math books).

[Johanna_reads]

Great video! I love conversing with myself through note-taking! Identifying themes is great for organizing concepts, and it can also help us emotionally engage as we explore meaning.

While my husband isn’t always interested in hearing me talk about books, discussing books with others always enriches my perspective and understanding. 😅

[FelixPuthenpura]

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to make this incredible video. I was trying to figure out what's the best way I can learn neuropathophysiology when I stumbled upon this video. Your video was incredibly easy to follow since you provided a concrete example of how you actually apply your techniques. I began using your techniques with neuropathophysiology and not only has the subject become far more sensible but I also find it much more interesting now. If you can make more videos similar to this tackling different types of subjects, it would be an amazing help to students like us. Thank you again!

[gnm]

Great.

This was Justin Sung's one of earlier videos, creation of prior knowledge after each layer of learning one after the other Which is way better than Rote free recall and active recall.

This is what I have been doing for a very long time. But this technique is very hard to teach.

Edit: Follow this by free recall as a revision method. This way you have both encoding and retrieval together

[demetriocran]

Hi Benjamin. Your videos are great. Years ago, I learned a lot from the book Make it Stick, now your videos seems to me as a perfect complement. My two cents: I think that one never is really done with a good book in the same way that any topic has infinite depth. Rereading a book after reading another book on the same topic can be enlightening. I like your way of putting things when you say that a book is a tool to make sense of something. The book per se is unimportant (I am not saying that the work of the author is meaningless, just saying that the important things is how we interact with the world, and the book are just a tool from that world)