Remember What You Read
For anyone who finishes a great book and, a month later, can barely remember what it said.
To remember what you read, read with a purpose, capture the ideas that matter in your own words, review them later and, most importantly, use one idea quickly. Most of what we read fades within days unless we revisit it. Writing ideas down, testing yourself on them and putting them into action are what turn reading into lasting knowledge.
For about a decade, I have kept a log of anything of value I hear: ideas from books, podcasts and stories people tell me. Every so often, I go back through it and sort it into categories so I can find it when I need it.
Early in my career, a leader I respected recommended John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. The book has 21 laws. But one idea from it changed how I saw my life: I was responsible for my world.
That idea became the first principle in my book. Remembering what you read is not about holding on to everything. It is about catching the ideas that matter and putting them to work.
Memory research explains why most reading fades. Hermann Ebbinghaus’s classic work on the forgetting curve showed how quickly new information slips away without review. Later studies by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke found that testing yourself on material, called retrieval practice, improves long-term memory far more than simply rereading it.
Progress doesn’t come from knowing more. It comes from doing more with what you already know.
Six ways to remember what you read
Read with a question in mind
Before you start, write down what you want from the book. A clear question helps your brain notice and keep the answers.
Capture ideas in your own words
When something hits, write it down in a sentence or two of your own. Restating an idea forces you to understand it, which helps it stick.
Keep one place for everything
Notes scattered across books, apps and scraps get lost. Keep one running log, digital or paper, and add to it every time you read or listen to something valuable.
Review what you saved
Go back through your notes a few days later, then again weeks later. Each review slows the forgetting curve.
Test yourself
Close the book and try to explain the main ideas from memory, out loud or on paper. Retrieval practice beats rereading for long-term memory.
Use one idea within a week
Pick one idea and apply it this week. Teach it to someone, try it at work or change one habit. What you use, you keep.
One idea from one book
changed how I saw my life.
Should you read faster or slower?
For books you want to remember and use, slower and deeper usually wins. Reading fewer books but capturing, reviewing and applying their best ideas will change more than racing through a long list you forget by spring.
Related reading: How to Make Time to Read When You Are Busy, Reading Lists and How to Get Better Every Day.
Common questions
How can I remember what I read?
Read with a question in mind, write key ideas in your own words, keep them in one place, review them later, test yourself from memory and apply one idea quickly.
Why do I forget what I read so quickly?
Without review, new information fades fast, a pattern first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus as the forgetting curve. Reviewing and using ideas slows that decline.
Is rereading a good way to remember a book?
Not on its own. Research by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke found that testing yourself on the material improves long-term memory much more than rereading.
Should I take notes while reading?
Yes, but keep them short and in your own words, and keep them in one place you will actually go back to.
Capture the ideas that matter in your own words, keep them in one place, review them and use one idea within a week.
You Are Capable
of More.
Ten principles for becoming the person you know you are capable of being, built from real stories of people who doubted themselves and did it anyway. Winner of the How-To category at the 2026 Paris Book Festival.
When I’ve got something worth sending.
Just a story or an idea I picked up that I think will help you.
Sometimes that’s twice in a month. Sometimes it’s not for a while.