Repeating the things you learned in your own words is a great way to make that knowledge stick. That is especially true when you not only say it but also write it down. By transferring the words from your mind into characters you write down, your brain gets a chance to sort itself and that again helps you to recollect that knowledge much better. Moreover, by having a writ-ten note on the topic you learned, you have something you can go back later to refresh your knowledge should it no longer be present.
How do you write your notes down? Pen and paper are great to memorize it, yet those hand-written notes are hard to find and next to impossible to search through. You can use your handwritten notes as a draft and then type it into a computer. That way you get the benefit of both and your text will be better – but you spend more time on it. There is no clear-cut answer on what you should do and it depends on your preferences. Whatever works for you is a good starting point. Do it, write your notes down and use this to persist your knowledge.
When this works for you, you can add one simple next step to profit even more: use a blog.
Blog it
Most blogger write their post to promote themselves. There is nothing wrong with it, but if this is your goal, you are constantly thinking about growing your audience. That is a skill in itself and needs training as well. However, most things you learn may be about other topics that you want to keep remembering. Did you try to combine your notes with your blog?
Use your blog as the persisting mechanism that you can use to share your thoughts and keep your knowledge in a searchable format. Make yourself the audience of your blog, especially that version of you that in six months from now needs to know some details that you have al-ready forgotten. That may sound selfish, yet it is a great way to help other people. As it turns out, you are not alone by forgetting those tiny details. Having a post that gives you a refresher is not only great for you, but for everyone else in in the search for that information.
Two rules
In my experience, there are only two important rules about blogging:
- Don’t write your own blogging engine
- Make it public
It is often a challenge to find time to write. Do not add more stress by using even more time to write your own blogging software. Focus on writing down your knowledge and use one of the existing tools to blog. There are so many that you will have no troubles to find one that fits your needs.
You could write your knowledge into a Word file instead of a blog. The effect would be the same for keeping the knowledge around, but you are back at the problem of finding it. If your blog is public, you can reach it from everywhere: at work, at home and even in your holidays. It will not be lost when you change your company or you lose your laptop.
A big benefit of blogging in public is that you can share your knowledge. Instead of explaining a topic over and over again in emails, Twitter or Slack, you point your friends and co-workers to your blog. Spending once a bit more time on explaining a topic saves you a lot of time later when you do not have to repeat yourself. Google and other search engines will bring you peo-ple that may know a lot more about a topic and be able to give you some insights you other-wise never would get. All that is only possible when those people can read your posts.
What is next?
The time spend on learning new things should not be wasted. Start your blog and write about the things you learned this week. Do not spend time on constantly checking the stats of your blog. Instead, keep learning and write about it. Keep an open eye on the times you open your blog to refresh your memory. Was it helpful? What would you write differently? Integrate this gained knowledge in your next posts and look if that helps you.
Try to blog about one topic per week. That is a lot of work and it forces you not only to write more, but also to constantly learn something.