How do you retain what you read from nonfiction books?
3 lachiejones 2 7/19/2025, 12:41:12 PM
I’ve always read a lot of nonfiction — psychology, business, philosophy - but one thing’s always bugged me: I forget way too much.
I’ll highlight like crazy, even journal after chapters, but a few weeks later most of the key ideas are just gone.
I got tired of that cycle and started building a tool for myself. It’s called NeuroGlo — you upload books you’ve already read, and it helps you retain what matters through interactive recall prompts and spaced revisits.
No summaries. No AI regurgitation. Just your own reading remembered better.
I’d love feedback, thoughts, or ideas from anyone who’s faced the same problem:
https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/1646332/159260796148254196/share
Curious what have you found actually works for remembering what you read?
So here's a different perspective on solving this problem: don't bother!
I'm sure you have other strengths. Lean into those and don't worry about trying to be the guy/girl that can recall details from books. Life gets much easier when you don't try to fight things that don't come natural to you.
So what do you do about your non-fiction reading? Keep reading! You may enjoy it more when you're not trying to read with an agenda and you're relieved of the burden of trying to memorize. Even if you can't recall the details, your brain will be folding ideas from what you're reading into the things you're working on and you'll have breakthroughs.
What happens for me is that I read some books that resonate so much for me that they become my "bibles." I can't remember all the details, but they're helpful to me in certain periods of my life. I come back to them every few years or when I think they'll be particularly helpful for something going on in my life and I get to read them with fresh eyes and new perspective.
What I’m doing is when I’m reading a book, I taking notes and underline all the sections that Interest me, then I compile them into a book, I’m using Vellum, which is a print layout tool.
Then, every month or two, I go to Lulu.and I print it out. I try and read half an hour or so every night before bed, and I keep editing. Move things around. For instance I read and took notes on three management books, and now I’m slowly and iteratively combining the notes. Adding my own color, keeping direct quotes I may hear from friends or colleagues, movies and tv, or famous historical figures.
It’s fun because I think one of my core values / goals in life is around creating things, and working on this as an actual artifact I can hold in my hands fills that desire.