Glad to be useful. In similar situations I often don’t know how much the advice I would have given to myself also applies to other people.
For me, the greatest memory-related shock was about 1 year after finishing university. I found my old paper with notes for the final exam, and I realized I didn’t understand half of the questions. Not only was I unable to answer them, but I had problem finding any related association. For the whole year in my job I was doing something completely different, and I forgot many things without even being aware that it happened. (The problem is, despite having studied computer science and working as a programmer, I never use 95-99% of what I learned at school. I know a lot of theory, I should be able to invent a new programming language and write a compiler with some basic optimization; but in real life I mostly do web interfaces for databases, over and over again.) Now I am sorry I didn’t make better notes at university. But at the time, I was so proud that I understand everything. I didn’t have experience with what happens when you simply never think about a topic for years. If you are 24, this may be already happening or going to happen to you, too.
A few years forward, my programming career was progressing: I wrote code for two years in Java, then seven years in something else. Then I returned to Java and was like: oh, here is the forgetting again! This time I was lucky, because I simply downloaded the official documentation, read it from the beginning to the end, and most forgotten memories returned quickly. (I didn’t have the note-making skill yet, but I already had the habit of always looking at the authoritative documentation first.) But then I realized that “learning to forget” is a stupid strategy when it comes to really useful things, so I started to make notes. (First I spent a lot of time trying to find a good software for that, and then ended writing my own. Today, I would probably use some existing tool.) Now when I learn something related to programming, I immediately start writing notes. At the beginning, they are chaotic a bit, but I can always refactor them later. I tried to use the same habit in other areas of life, but somehow it didn’t work. Recently I started using Anki when learning human languages. The difference is, with human languages, you need to keep it all in your head, all the time, because you never know when you will need a word. With computer languages, remembering is not necessary, only the ability to find it quickly; and it is good to have the knowledge divided by topics. I could use Google for many questions, but some topics are rather difficult to find this way (either because many people ask the question and nobody provides an answer; or when many people provide incorrect information), and I believe I can write the information in the format best legible to me.
For the mood, reminding yourself of your past successes is very good. Sometimes people don’t see the forest for the trees. A great success may require thousand days of work, and when you wake up on the day#470 and you don’t see any progress compared with the days #469 and #468, it is easy to believe that you are not going anywhere. If you have a list of successes, and you see that every other year something great happens, that puts things into better perspective. (But it also goes the other way round. If you procrastinate, it is easy to believe that you are on the way to your next goal, when in fact you are going nowhere.)
Glad to be useful. In similar situations I often don’t know how much the advice I would have given to myself also applies to other people.
For me, the greatest memory-related shock was about 1 year after finishing university. I found my old paper with notes for the final exam, and I realized I didn’t understand half of the questions. Not only was I unable to answer them, but I had problem finding any related association. For the whole year in my job I was doing something completely different, and I forgot many things without even being aware that it happened. (The problem is, despite having studied computer science and working as a programmer, I never use 95-99% of what I learned at school. I know a lot of theory, I should be able to invent a new programming language and write a compiler with some basic optimization; but in real life I mostly do web interfaces for databases, over and over again.) Now I am sorry I didn’t make better notes at university. But at the time, I was so proud that I understand everything. I didn’t have experience with what happens when you simply never think about a topic for years. If you are 24, this may be already happening or going to happen to you, too.
A few years forward, my programming career was progressing: I wrote code for two years in Java, then seven years in something else. Then I returned to Java and was like: oh, here is the forgetting again! This time I was lucky, because I simply downloaded the official documentation, read it from the beginning to the end, and most forgotten memories returned quickly. (I didn’t have the note-making skill yet, but I already had the habit of always looking at the authoritative documentation first.) But then I realized that “learning to forget” is a stupid strategy when it comes to really useful things, so I started to make notes. (First I spent a lot of time trying to find a good software for that, and then ended writing my own. Today, I would probably use some existing tool.) Now when I learn something related to programming, I immediately start writing notes. At the beginning, they are chaotic a bit, but I can always refactor them later. I tried to use the same habit in other areas of life, but somehow it didn’t work. Recently I started using Anki when learning human languages. The difference is, with human languages, you need to keep it all in your head, all the time, because you never know when you will need a word. With computer languages, remembering is not necessary, only the ability to find it quickly; and it is good to have the knowledge divided by topics. I could use Google for many questions, but some topics are rather difficult to find this way (either because many people ask the question and nobody provides an answer; or when many people provide incorrect information), and I believe I can write the information in the format best legible to me.
For the mood, reminding yourself of your past successes is very good. Sometimes people don’t see the forest for the trees. A great success may require thousand days of work, and when you wake up on the day#470 and you don’t see any progress compared with the days #469 and #468, it is easy to believe that you are not going anywhere. If you have a list of successes, and you see that every other year something great happens, that puts things into better perspective. (But it also goes the other way round. If you procrastinate, it is easy to believe that you are on the way to your next goal, when in fact you are going nowhere.)