Rereading feels like learning. It isn't. In the best-known study, students who reread a passage four times knew it better five minutes later than students who read it once and then spent the rest of the time writing down what they could recall. A week later it had flipped: the recall group kept about sixty per cent, the rereaders about forty. Evidence: solid
Pulling something out of your head is what strengthens it. A large review of learning techniques put this one at the top, and it's been replicated many times. Evidence: solid
Works for a report, a name, a language, a talk. The uncomfortable feeling of not quite remembering is the exercise working.
Same theme: Learning it
Learning it
Coffee after, not before
Want a fact to stick? Have the coffee right after you learn it.
no timeEvidence: worth trying
Learning it
Hook the new thing to something you know
Learning a name, a fact, a process: ask what it reminds you of, and tie it there.
no timeEvidence: decent
Learning it
Learn it last thing before lights out
The thing you need to remember goes in the final fifteen minutes before sleep. Not the phone.
15 minEvidence: decent