You’re going to want to commit this tip to memory.
Dr. Darien Sutton, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a medical correspondent for ABC News, is sharing his system to remember new, critical information.
“Everyone has a different method of remembering things — that might be because we all see the world differently. We all learn differently,” Sutton explained this month on TikTok. “So this method might not work for you, but this is how I remember new information.”
Here are the bullet points on Sutton’s technique, which involves several sets of bullet points.
- Understand the material: “I have to understand it through and through. I can’t remember it until it makes sense to me,” Sutton said. “Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time.”
- Separate the information into topics: “I write it down in bullet-point format,” Sutton shared. “Each topic can only have around four or five bullet points.”
- Type the written notes: “After I’ve written it down on pen and paper, and the information creates a clear path of understanding, I then convert those written notes into typed notes,” Sutton said. He usually types the info into his notes app or a Google Doc.
- Summarize the info: “I go for a walk, and I try to think of a statement that summarizes a few topics,” Sutton continued. Once he has the statement in mind, he records it in a voice note on his phone. “I continue that process until I have a small folder of voice notes on my phone.”
- Listen to the voice notes: “I listen to those voice notes like [they’re] music. I listen to them until I’ve committed them to memory,” Sutton said. He reviews his typed notes while listening to the voice notes and transfers key information to a small note card with a few bullet points that he uses to share the information on air.
“I need a method to remember your method,” one TikTok user joked.
“This method saved me in law school,” penned a commenter who identified themselves as a lawyer. “The goal was to get all your case summaries for a topic down to one page and then all the pages for each topic down to one page for the subject.”
“I also put my notes in ChatGPT and then I have ChatGPT make me a multiple choice test of the notes,” another person offered.
For his part, brain coach, podcaster and author Jim Kwik suggests learning material “with the intention of teaching” it to someone else.
It’s called the “self-explanation effect,” which involves recalling the material, making connections between the ideas and identifying what doesn’t make sense so you can figure out the missing information to share with others.
Dr. Karan Rangarajan, who goes by Dr. Karan Raj, recommends the method of loci, also called the Memory Palace technique.
Choose a familiar place, like your home, and place the facts you want to recall in different locations within that space.
“To remember the facts when you need them, just think about walking around different rooms in your house picking up facts,” Rangarajan said.
