The Index Card Expirement

A major problem of mine is remembering things that I read or watch. I have a wide range of interests that leads me to read about, watch, and listen to many things. However, when it comes to discussing these things with others, I can recall very few things. Yesterday I watched the new episode of Think Different TV; a show that revolves around “interesting video conversations between two people.” In the latest episode Ben Casnocha and Josh Kaufman discuss books; how they choose them, read them, and remember them.

Ben mentions that he is very forgetful and, like me, can’t remember a lot of what he reads if he doesn’t drill it into his mind somehow. Josh answers that he is a big fan of 3 x 5 in index cards and uses them for everything, specifically when reading he uses an index card as a bookmark and writes down ideas, quotes, etc. At a different part of the episode they talk about 30 day challenges.

By not making long term commitments and instead trying something out for 30 days, the activity becomes a casual expirement rather than being a hefty commitment. If at the end of 30 days you don’t like what ever it is you try you can just stop without feeling guilty. Both of these ideas, index cards and 30 day challenges, seemed very appealing so for February I’m going to try using index cards to write down notes about things I learn, in hopes that this will help me retain information better.

Keep you posted.