

Ask HN: Do you work on improving your memory ? - technology

If I read an article on Harvard Business Review or if I read some books like Good to Great by Jim Collins and I go to some kind of networking events and talk to some CEOs and while I share my ideas and the next thing is that I can't even recall what I just read from those books/articles and I can't prove myself or defend my ideas to these people or while I'm in negotiations.<p>Anybody else had the problem when your talking to your colleagues or while in negotiations you can't recall the stuff you read and do you think how strong you memorize stuff might be single most predictor of success in your career ?
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robsteranium
I think it's far more important that you learn from the things you read and
are able to apply those lessons in other contexts. As such, you might not even
remember where you first read an idea or even that you read it at all!

I would be worried if you were regurgitating articles _at_ your collocutors.
Memorising things rote won't help you to provide relevant insights.

As I understand it, the brain stores memories by the repeated use of synaptic
pathways. So don't be afraid to re-read texts and find related material -
preparing your argument/ reading-around the topic is vital for making your
case. You'll find it easier to recall useful insights from what you've read if
you can identify pattern (e.g. by considering how new ideas might work in
other contexts - particularly ones you're working on. I've read (somewhere)
that it's easier to make sense of quantitative conclusions if you've got a
qualitative explanation (or story).

Finally, don't worry about not having author-date-publisher citations to hand
(unless you're studying!) - if you've integrated what you've learned into a
consistent world view then you will be able to defend/ explain your ideas
yourself. In other words: present the idea first, worry about credibile
references later.

