How To Retain What You Read- [7 Tips]

Ask Questions about the Book 

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To retain more of what you’ve read. Ask questions about the book before you begin, for this you’ll need a pen and paper. Write down every question you have. Then, once you begin reading, start to answer the questions as they present themselves throughout the text.

Skim The Book First

Before you dig in, try skimming through the book first. Take a look at the table of contents, then find and browse interesting chapters. Build up your curiosity. By doing this, you are familiarizing yourself with the content and building interest. This is a surefire way to insure you’ll retain more information from each book.

Use a Reading Journal

Use a reading journal to write summaries after every reading session. This journal differs from a book review logbook. The logbook is for reviewing, rating, and summarizing what you’ve read in total. We’ll talk more about this down below. The reading journal is great to summarize the end of each reading session. This is especially important when you’re reading multiple books at one time. Say, for example, you’re reading one nonfiction and one fiction book. You read the nonfiction book on Monday, and then the other book the next day. For the next 2-3 days, you get stuck on the Nonfiction book. So, a few days have passed, and you’ve picked up the fiction title again. Chances are, you may not remember exactly how the chapter ended, or where you’ve left off. So, all you have to do is open your journal, and quickly review the previous chapter. 

Talk About the Book  

Have conversations with people about what you’ve read. You may find that they have additional questions that you may not have the answers to quite yet, but you can get back to them at a later time. Now that you’re invested in seeking the answers, once you’ve learned them, you’re sure to remember those facts in the future.

Try Audiobooks

Listen to the audio version as well. Take some of the pressure off yourself. Be entertained and get informed all at the same time. This is also useful because people have different learning styles. Some learn by doing, hearing, or watching. Another fun option here is you can try immersion reading, where you read, and listen to the audiobook version as well. You can read the book at home, and listen to the book on your work commute. You can always choose to do more of one, over the other at any time. You can try out Audible here.

Write a Book Review

Write a review in a logbook and refer to it often, or keep the learning up with a similar book. Once you’ve finished your book, use a logbook to log your thoughts and views of the book. This could help you retain information. It can also help you pinpoint exactly what it is that you liked about the book you’ve read. This way, you can shop for similar titles or authors. 

Read the Book Multiple times 

Don’t be afraid to read the book multiple times. Many people do this with their favorite titles. I have started doing this for books that I skim through. Oftentimes, I’m eager to get to the most valuable part of the book, so I’ll fish out whatever it is that I came for. Often when doing this, you’ll be able to tell fairly quickly whether this is a book that you’d like to invest more time into. Most often, you’ll find that what you’ve been reading is actually a very good book with great information. So simply return to the book and read it more thoroughly the second time around.

The end!

Hopefully, these tips have provided useful information on how to retain more knowledge from everything you read. You can also try active reading. I’m curious to know if you’ll try any of these tips out. Or, maybe you have your own suggestions that could help us readers out, please let us know down below in the comments. 

Happy reading,

Eager Books