Remembering What You Learned Before

Do You Have Trouble Remembering What You’ve Learned?

One of the problems that I have had in the past, as I move from learning one program to another, is that I tend to forget things that I’ve learned before, and have to go back and relearn them.

For instance, creating movies from PowerPoint!

Until late 2014, I really hadn’t done a lot with PowerPoint. I had the program on my computer, but didn’t pay much attention to it unless I had to do a presentation.

Usually what I did if I needed to use the program was just dive in and make some basic slides, with pointers about what I was talking about, and then just fill in the gaps with my talk.

(I’ve always thought it was pretty stupid to put absolutely everything on to the slides, and then just read them out!)

Anyway, in late 2014 I did a couple of courses and learned how to use PowerPoint to create videos, use animations and so on.

Which was good, but then I did a course on Adobe’s Lightroom, another on photography, and yet another on video.

In the midst of all this, I went and did a course to become an accredited UAV pilot with CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Australia’s equivalent to FAA in the US).

Anyway, I found that my general skills with PP had improved markedly – my presentations were no longer as boring as mud.

The problem was, that when I went to create videos, I needed to keep referring back to tutorials in order to remember key points.

It wasn’t a major drama, but it does affect productivity if I need to keep those skills into the future.

Apparently, according to studies, it is common for the human brain to “forget” things in order to learn new things, so if we neglect a skill for an extended period, the brain forgets it so that it can focus on what it is learning today.

So what I do now is set aside 15 minutes each day to review a skill that I want to continue to use.

Monday it might be Lightroom, Tuesday it might be HTML or another web language and so on.

And then the next week I mix it up and start again.

Maybe it’s just me, but if you have a similar problem it may work for you as well.

When it comes to other things like family events, family history and so on, I seem to have a memory like an elephant.

Do you find the same thing?