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A lot of what we’ve talked about at Holisticism and The Twelfth House over the last five years pertains to how to create systems, and about how those systems (or lack thereof) influence our personal information worlds.

So often the major problems we face as creative entrepreneurs and makers — burnout, overwhelm, unceasing existential dread — are foregrounded by the way we consume and create knowledge. It’s so boring to talk about, but I think we can all agree that there’s an ideal consume:create ratio that allows us to take in new information, get inspired, and transmute that new knowledge into something that’s our own. But getting to that ideal consumption-creation balance is easier said than done in a world where you’re constantly pelleted with Cocomelon-level high stimulation content.

Today — per reader request! — I wanted to explore strategies for reading to retain information, because all of us need to do research for one reason or another. If you’ve ever looked up from a book only to realize you have no idea what you just spent the last 20 minutes reading; if you’ve ever lost yourself in a scroll hole while “researching” for work; if you’ve ever struggled to articulate to your partner what, exactly, was so interesting about that article from The New Yorker that you just read… this guide is for you.

Or, if you’re just someone who identifies as a life-long learner and wants to make research a more satisfying hobby, read on.

To retain, or not to retain

First and foremost, why do you need to retain information when you read? Or, maybe, when do you need to retain information?

I don’t find the need to retain everything I read or consume; in fact, much of what I consume leaves me thinking, Damn, wish I could delete that out of my brain and reclaim some of my cognitive RAM.

Personally, I am not interested in annotating a work of fiction unless I’m writing an essay about it. Fiction is my escapay. But there’s a hell of a lot in the non-fiction category that I research and take in that I do want to recall later, a few reasons being:

* because I’m working on a project, and I want to build upon the ideas I’ve already generated with new concepts I read about

* because I want to participate in a conversation (literal or metaphorical) and feel informed about a topic

* because I want to learn a skill or acquire new knowledge, and what I’ve read walks me through how to do that thing

* because I want to critique or rebuttal what I’ve read to establish my own divergence of thought

Maybe you identify with some of my Remember Reasons, and you likely have your own reasons for wanting to retain ideas from what you read or consume.

Ultimately, I believe understanding why retaining the information is important to you — aka so what? what will you do with that information? — informs the strategies you use when reading for retention.

Pre-Reading

Get your bearings