I watched a video* on YouTube that discussed a system for remembering things.
If you love to devour books only to discover you can’t remember the main points, let alone even give a one-liner quote to someone about the book, then this post (and YouTube video) might be for you!
Firstly, you’ll need a few things: post-it notes (the small page marker ones are useful for this), index cards and some kind of box (perhaps an index card box) or any box will do.
The premise of the process is this: when reading a book, either fold pages, underline or use post-it notes to mark the pages you like. If you own the book, you can even make little notes in the margins of the pages for thoughts that come to you while reading.
Later (perhaps even once you’ve finished the book), you can transfer those quotes that you liked by handwriting them onto index cards—you can include the book name and author, page number and any further thoughts you may have had prompted by the quote or any notes you wrote in the page margins.
Next, sort these cards by theme or book, and you’ll have a library of book quotes that you can refer to later!
Genius, right?
The reason this was revolutionary for me was two-part.
Firstly, I love to read at night. However, I don’t love pulling out my journal and handwriting a quote when I’m trying to relax and unwind before bed. So, the thought of just inserting a page marker post-it note next to the quote and later transferring it through writing it out onto an index card during the day is fantastic!
Secondly, I borrow a lot of books from the library. Therefore, I can’t highlight, underline or make any notes in the page margins! So, the thought of using a page market post-it note to mark the page or even store tiny notes on is fantastic.
So far, I’ve used this method for a couple of months and found it useful for not only books but podcasts and other content too. If I listen to a talk or podcast and hear a great quote, I write the quote and speaker’s name onto a card and slot it back into the index card box.
This method works for me because it’s easy to do and gives you a library of book quotes that you can later refer to. Plus, it’s a great refresher when trying to remember or tell someone what that book you read three months ago was about!
*For those wanting to watch the video that inspired this process, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvey9g0VgY0
The Editing Eagle 