Information Diet

Biohacker Review: Hacking Forgetting

A great language learning tool!

SuperMemo has a real difference in my making progress in learning a supremely challenging new language, Bulgarian. So far I've just dabbled with the Spanish and German language learning Apps for Android but I'm super impressed with not only the production of the courses but also my retention of new vocabulary.

Honestly, the full Windows software version is huge and a little confusing at first. I'm just now experimenting with the full paid version of it, I will publish a review and video case study soon! I suspect SuperMemo will become an important ingredient in my Limitless recipe for grandeur aka my biohacker toolkit!

About SuperMemo

A software tool +25 years in research and development to enable limitless knowledge acquisition and retention.

• The algorithm takes advantage of the 'spacing effect' to remove the inefficiencies from the learning, review, and knowledge retention process. 
• Hack the mechanism of forgetfulness to learn skills, technical knowledge & languages in a fraction of the time.
• For Windows, iPhone, and Android.

Update: This one is worth reading; as the information ecosystem shifts every year, I find new tools and hacks for learning and retaining more of what I learn while reducing distraction. For example, I've become very intolerant of annoying, time-wasting midroll ads; I've got some hacks for blocking them in this updated article.

I'm an information-aholic.

You hear a lot of lifehackers talking about practicing a low-information diet. Indeed, we live in an age of infinite information, yet we have very finite time and attention. A lot of lifehackers decry constant information consumption as a distracting practice. Bruce Lee had something insightful to say about this...

We’ve discussed the dynamic of information equity. Let’s now cover seven ways of increasing the equity and value you get from your information consumption, including task batching, mental segregation, and using memory triggers.

One of the greatest misconceptions in our age of mind-blowing technology is that "information is free" or wants to be.

Information is actually one of the most expensive things in the world, and no matter how much money you have, you'll never be able to afford as much of it as you need.

The primary problem with knowledge acquisition (or "learning" for those of you who don't want to use my cool new buzz phrase) is that it's expensive in the currencies of time, mental energy, and sometimes money.

Audio learning is a powerful weapon in the fight against the tyranny of high-cost (again, in terms of time and mental energy, primarily) information. The benefits of knowledge acquisition through audiobooks, programs, or podcasts include increased vocabulary, improved listening skills, boosted comprehension, and improved attention spans.

Tips for maximizing comprehension and information equity...

A Quick Story...

When I first saw the movie Limitless over a decade ago, I was in a bad place...

• I was broke, living on my brother's uncomfortable couch.
• I had just been through a very rough business partnership breakup, an experience not unlike getting divorced.
• My dating and social life had gone from rockstar to zero overnight.
• My nights and weekends were spent watching TV on the same couch I slept on every night.
• Living in a very lame suburb, I was miles from a suitable workout location. I got lazy and stopped exercising.
• Additionally, I had some legal problems with my driver's license - NOT from drinking and driving - but I had lost my driver's license due to some unpaid fines from years ago and driving under revocation. I never went to jail, but I had to spend a ton of time going to court and most of my disposable income dealing with the legal system.

When I saw the movie, I knew that some real-life equivalent of NZT-48 had to exist, and I needed to find it! Check out this snapshot of my life in the ensuing decade and judge for yourself whether I found it...

While I love "normal books," audiobooks are a tool in the Lifehacker's war chest for high-leverage learning and do offer some special benefits.

Notably, audiobooks help improve listening comprehension. By listening to audiobooks, one can improve their comprehension by hearing the language. Audio learning helps stimulate the imagination, increase reading fluency, and provide a model of proper pronunciation, sentence structure, and proper grammar. By hearing the language, the listeners build their vocabularies. Listening to books provides the listeners with an audio model and reference to pronounce words properly, create proper sentence structure, and improve grammar. Audiobooks improve comprehension through audio cues like tone, pauses, and pacing.

Can you think of a non-fiction book that you enjoyed reading about 10 years ago?

I can think of a few, The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, for example, which a rapper friend of mine recommended to me. What do you remember from books that you read a decade ago?

Not much, right? Isn’t reading dense non-fiction kind of a waste of time if you don’t remember much from what you read? Reading is, of course, a better pastime than TV or browsing social media, but if you are only going to remember one or two factoids from a book that takes you 10–20 hours to read that’s not a great way to spend the limited time you have to devote towards intellectual growth.

So I’ll share four reading lifehacks for optimizing your metabolism of the knowledge in these pages into wisdom…