Advice on how to remember everything you read is plastered all over the internet. And to me — someone who juggles writing with studying languages and philosophy — this used to sound like the key to the promised land. Here was the antidote to living in a world of information overload. At last, I could escape the torturing anxiety of reading a book and forgetting everything once I closed its back cover. Hallelujah.
Except… it didn’t work.
Here’s why — and what worked for me instead.
The Problems With Remembering Everything You Read
I’ve experienced two major problems:
- Trying to remember everything you read creates a ton of unnecessary pressure. Whenever I flipped open a book, I felt like I’d entered the colosseum and needed to fight forgetfulness. It was a battle to squeeze out drops of information. It took the joy out of reading.
- Our brains are not wired to remember everything. Just imagine how stressful it’d be to have a head full of memories that buzz like bees — all the terrible news you watch, all the things you ate, all the embarrassing moments from high school. Our brain is selective. It doesn’t try to take screenshots of the world — rather, it tries to understand the world.
In other words: Forgetfulness helps us stay sane.
And sure, we could trick the system and outsource the information we consume. Build a “second brain.” Start using fancy highlighters, post-its, and neat note-taking apps. But honestly? That only brought me back to problem one. It turned reading into an act of performance and erased any tranquility, insight, and space for growth.
The more sustainable and effortless solution that worked for me is counterintuitive: reading is not about remembering all the important stuff — it’s about allowing yourself to forget the unimportant stuff.
With that in mind, here are four ideas on absorbing what you read by remembering less.
1. The Magnetism of Memory
Your memory is a magnet. It attracts important information. The more significant and relevant the information, the stronger it’ll stick. Now, of course, you can make yourself remember stuff by crowbarring content into your mind. But that’d be about as useful as gluing a piece of wood to a magnet.
The simpler way — you guessed it — is to find something that’s naturally magnetic. That is, reading whatever you need the most right now. Reading what naturally excites you. Reading what solves problems in your life. These are the things you’ll remember effortlessly.
For instance, here are two books I read recently: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn.
When I read Sapiens, I took great care to remember as much as possible. I taped colorful post-its between important passages, dogeared the pages, and took notes that my high-school history teacher would applaud. I even wrote a summary in my fancy Notion hub. And yet, today, I can’t recall anything from that book.
Conversely, when I read Conversations on Love, I didn’t take a lot of notes. I only highlighted the most insightful passages and jotted down their page numbers. It was an effortless reading experience. Today, I still recite the lessons from that book in nearly every conversation I have about love.
What’s going on there?
The problem wasn’t Harari’s writing style. (He’s actually a master at expressing complex ideas in concise language.) The problem was that I wasn’t attracted enough to the history of humankind. Lunn’s insights on love, though? I soaked those up like a thirsty sponge.
The point is this:
You’ll naturally remember the things that matter most to you. Forcing yourself to remember everything you read will only blur out the nuggets of wisdom you could use right now. Finding worthwhile information in a bursting brain is about as strenuous as spotting your date in a crowded cafe.
Allow yourself to forget. See what sticks naturally.
2. Forgetfulness Feeds Self-Knowledge
If we accept that our memories function like magnets— only attracting what matters to us — forgetting can be an effective tool for gaining self-knowledge. See, once we stop blindly memorizing mountains of data, only the relevant bits will remain. We can investigate those bits and reverse-engineer how and why they have impacted us.
Back to the earlier example — Conversations on Love. Because the lessons from that book tattooed themselves on my synapses, I realized how captivating I find the topic of love.
This insight has urged me to read more books on love and discuss it more often in conversations. And that, in turn, has made everything I’ve learned about love even stickier. It’s as if I reinforced the magnetic pull of my memory.
Sure, there are a few cases where it can be helpful to “demagnetize” your memory — like stubborn rumination or heartbreak. But even in these cases, it can be practical to play sherlock and ask with modest curiosity: Why is this so important to me? What is my brain trying to tell me? What kind of thoughts would I like to attract instead?
In any case, it’s worth tracking down the tiny blobs of recollection that stick from the daily dump of information. They’re a natural indicator of what matters to us in a world of overstimulation.
3. Forgetful Reading Is Effortless Reading
Forgetfulness also makes us look at the underlying reasons why we read and consume information in the first place.
It’s so easy to think, If I’m going to forget most things I read anyway, I should quit reading anything. But that’s pure utilitarianism. It’s kind of like thinking that the ultimate goal of playing the piano is to perform concerts.
So, why keep reading?
Because it’s fun! Books open windows into new worlds. They make us laugh, cry, and shout, “Aha!” Reading is a self-sufficient activity — like playing music, taking a walk, or having sex. (Nobody shows off by having done these things in the fastest time possible.) Reading for reading’s sake is enough.
Once I started approaching reading with the license to forget, it became an effortless pastime. I was able to enjoy the process of reading rather than trying to cram data into my skull.
4. Even the Things You Forget Will Impact You
The last point to consider is that many things you read deeply will impact you, even if you don’t notice it.
Admittedly, it tortures me whenever someone asks me what I read recently, and I struggle to remember a single bite. But again, repeating quotes like a parrot is not the goal of reading. It’s not how our brains work. Instead, we’re wired to remember things whenever it makes sense. And it’s beautiful.
Here’s what I mean.
Let’s say you just finished a great book. It was an enjoyable read, and you felt like you gained a ton of insight. But as you throw yourself back into daily life, it seems that other hefty bricks of information get stacked on top of the author’s wisdom. A few days go by. More bricks pile up on the fine phrases you had been adoring so dearly — layer upon layer.
It starts to feel like this:
After a month or so, the book’s ideas suffocated under the weight of clay. You’ve stopped thinking about the book entirely, and the next time you walk by a bookstore, it makes you think: “Why even bother reading?”
But then, unexpectedly, marvelous things start to happen.
You meet a person who reminds you of a character you loved (or hated) in that one novel. You learn about an idea that sparks a link to a blog post you read years ago. You find yourself in a messy situation and randomly recall words of consolation from your favorite writer.
The ideas you read, as insignificant as they had seemed to become, impacted everything that stacked on top:
That’s the beauty of reading and forgetting the things you read: if something has impacted you once, there’s a good chance it’ll impact you again. Books leave beautiful dents in the overwhelming brick wall of life.
Maybe Don’t Remember What You Read
The moral? You don’t need to listen to productivity gurus telling you to remember everything. Allow yourself to forget what you read. The good stuff will stick naturally and act like a catalyst for self-knowledge. And even the nuggets that get buried under the busyness of life will leave their mark, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.
What a readlief. (Ha, get it?)
h/t to this Quora post by Katarina Janoskova and Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter from 02/02/23 — they inspired some of these ideas
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