People who haven’t used a memory system tend to think of it as a tool you might apply “when you want to memorize something.” But this misses the point. Without augmentation, explicitly memorizing information is quite onerous, so it's done rarely, for extremely important details.
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With an efficient memory system, remembering something is a low-stakes decision—a fraction of a minute over years. Such systems wouldn’t be very interesting if you use them only to memorize the kinds of material you already memorize, because people don’t explicitly memorize much.
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Not only do memory systems make memory a choice, but they make it an almost costless choice. Emotionally it’s closer to choosing where to highlight or write marginalia on a page. Practically, when an expensive resource becomes ~costless, surprising things happen (eg electricity).
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The way I add things to memory systems feels like a *gesture*. It’s usually not that purposeful—more like mentally “underlining." Much like how I use the Twitter like button. Not a bookmark, not a vote, not costly; liking a tweet is a habitual unconscious way I indicate interest.
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What surprising thing has happened to you as a result of using memory systems?
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The main thing is a feeling of accretion. Interesting thoughts stay with me in a durable way, feel close at hand. Info I learn as part of my projects feels reliably accessible. This makes learning feel more rewarding, since I see how the results last.
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Anki is a fine place to start.
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Based on your previous advice, I was left with the impression that writing good prompts is a very deliberate activity. But here it sounds much more instinctual and less involved. Is this shift in perception just a result of experience and getting accustomed to the techniques?
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It's a good question. There's a sort of paradox here! Writing the prompt is often effortful, but the decision to write it is not?
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