In summary:

Curate timeless subjects.
Leverage existing expert material.
Discard low-quality notes.
Diversify how you recall and reason.

That’s how you actually retain what you learn.

#4 Ensure active learning is truly active.

After reviewing flashcards a few times, you end up remembering the wording, not the concept.

Real active learning mixes formats: open-ended prompts, variable phrasing, multiple flashcard versions.

#3 Stop reviewing bad notes.

If your notes read like “They said it was important,” you’re reviewing ambiguity, not knowledge.

Borrow from people who’ve already structured the material clearly.

Premade sets can be found on Quizlet and Polym.

#2 Don’t spend hours making notes.

Note-taking can feel productive, but much of it is duplication.

Universities publish excellent lecture notes for free: MIT, Stanford, and others.

Start there, then refine.

#1 Stop reviewing what doesn’t matter.

Limit reviewing outdated or hyper-specific content (how do you feel about your cross-chain NFT notes these days?).

Instead, curate subjects that will still matter in a decade.

Wikipedia’s outline of knowledge is a good place for inspiration.

Thanks, found this interesting: "Portia fimbriata has been observed to perform vibratory behavior for three days until the victim decided to investigate. They time invasions of webs to coincide with light breezes that blur the vibrations that their approach causes". Quite the species!