Remember by sharing

Long ago I learned the trick to helping my brain remember something. Whenever I learn something that feels important I’ll make sure to immediately capture the thought in some form. That usually involves a screenshot, writing it down, sending a voice memo to a friend, taking a picture of a timestamp from an audiobook, photographing a physical book, or saving a Thread to my account. The goal is to save the information I’ve learned in some form.

That’s just the first step. I have literal thousands of examples of saved information across all my digital devices using the above methods.

The next step, if I really want to remember, is to share it. In the past I’d get on the phone with my wife or brother and talk through some interesting thing I’d learned. I still do that, but I’ll sometimes write a blog post, or send that information along to a friend with some context about it.

In that way I’ve made a small action to tie to a moment, and give it the chance of becoming a memory for later. If I read a great book I’ll share my favorite parts with friends for several months (often against their will), further cementing the concepts in my brain.