In January, I started reading ‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene with the initial goal of memorizing main paragraphs word by word for better retention and understanding. However, after a month, using the story and association method seems too time-consuming; progress is slower than I expected. It’s not affecting me much, other than the urge to skip a paragraph or two. I’m considering a quicker approach. Any suggestions for a more time-efficient method?
Retention and understanding of a topic or a text doesn’t necessarily (or even usually) follow from verbatim memorizing. You’re much better off trying to work on your understanding of the material first because then you’ll be able to parse what is actually important and be able to make more meaningful mental images to hold onto. Aside from maybe math formulas, programming commands and shortcuts, poetry, or religious texts where exactness is crucial, I don’t see much of an advantage to or reason for committing every word of a text to memory. The amount of time needed to encode is much better spent working with the material in new ways to develop the understanding of it.
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