How to remember what you read

Choose what you want to keep

You will not remember every page, and you do not need to. While you read, or right after you finish, decide what you want to take from the book: two or three ideas, a scene, a character, a line you liked. A short list is easier to come back to than a book full of underlining.

Recall before you reread

Rereading and underlining feel productive, but they do little for memory. A review of ten study techniques rated both of them low and rated practice at recalling high. In one experiment, students who read a passage and then wrote down what they remembered kept more of it a week later than students who read it again. Rereading did better on a test five minutes later; recalling did better after two days and after a week.

These studies used students and textbooks, but the habit works with any book. Before you open the book, take a minute to remember where you stopped: what happened, what the author was arguing, what you thought about it. Then check against the last pages you read.

At the top of the Pagetime library, the bookmark shows the book you are reading, your page and one of your notes about it. Swipe to see your other notes. Try to recall the rest before you tap “Continue”.

Write a few lines in your own words

After a chapter, close the book and write two or three sentences from memory: what happened and what you think about it. Writing from memory is recall too. A month later, your own sentence also tells you why the chapter mattered to you, which an underlined line rarely does.

Keep exact quotes as well, with the page number. In Pagetime, your own words go in a Thought and the author’s words in a Quote. The guide to taking notes while reading shows how to add them without stopping the timer.

Come back after a few days, then after a few weeks

One long review right after you finish helps less than a few short ones spread over time. A large review of memory experiments found that spacing practice out works better than doing it all at once.

Look through your notes on a book a few days after you finish it, then again a month later. Five minutes is enough: read a note, try to remember what was around it in the book, then check.

Pagetime brings notes back on its own. The bookmark usually shows a recent note and sometimes an older one. Every two weeks, a notification reminds you of a quote you saved at least a month ago. Like any other notification type, you can turn it off. The Notes tab collects notes from all your books, and you can search them by text, book title or author.

Talk about the book

Telling someone about a book makes you put it into your own words, and it shows you what you have already forgotten. Tell a friend about it, write a short review or bring it to a book club.

An example conversation that draws on your notes.

Look back at the month

The free version holds up to 5 books and includes 20 page scans with text recognition in total. Deleting a note does not restore a used scan. Notes and the timer work offline without an account; sync is free after signing in. A subscription removes the book and scan limits and unlocks your full stats history, year in review and folder export. Pagetime is coming to iPhone and Android; you can leave your email below to hear when it is available. Until then, a notebook and two sentences after each chapter will do.

This independent guide is published by Pagetime and is not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by Apple Inc. or Google LLC.