How can you use semantic memory to improve your thinking and recall?

Hello!

There are less than two weeks left in 2023 - how time flies! I'll be taking off work at the end of this week and all next week to enjoy the holidays. This time is also when I'll start the process of reflecting on 2023 and goal setting for 2024.

I use closed loops for reflection and adjustment. You don't learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience! I have a process for review on weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly cadences. I set an intention for a time period and then reflect after that time period is over. It's not a perfect process by any means, but it is one that adds value and I continue improving during each round of review.

Obviously the yearly cycle is rarer as it only happens every 12 months, so it's fun to have an opportunity to perform that end of year reflection soon - and to have a little bit of space with which to do it.

I always think of folks like Bill Gates who would take off to the mountains for a week to think. I don't quite have a life where I can disappear for a week, but I can sneak out into the woods for a few hours here and there in December. The combination of nature and space for reflection is really good for how I work.

Let me know if you're interested in more details about my process. I can elaborate on it in a future newsletter.

What are your end of year reflection rituals?

Keep improving,
Kevin

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A Quote

“ He circled tracks with his stick as we went, but even then, they remained invisible to me. “You must train yourself to see your track,” he said. In the hour and a half it took us to find the lion, I couldn’t make out one clear track. Where else in my life was there a path that I was missing? The implications felt profound. — Boyd Varty, "The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life"

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Three Things

1 - 📉 Dislocation of US Economic Sentiment - If you’ve spent any time on the current state of macroeconomics you may have heard the term ‘vibes’ to describe how people feel about the US economy right now versus how it’s actually performing. Noah Smith of Noahpinion included some charts from the Financial Times in a recent newsletter that shows the ‘vibes’ dislocation here in the US, which isn’t happening anywhere else in the world. American’s feel worse about the economy than the actual economic indicators would expect us to feel. I found this very interesting.

2 - 🧦 A Lifetime Supply of Socks is Seven Pairs - As someone who recently threw away something like nine individual socks over a two week period, I suddenly became interested in socks. What’s a good sock? What do other people do about socks? I eventually found Darn Tough. Their socks are largely made from wool and have an unconditional lifetime warranty. They offer a “lifetime supply” of socks - which equals seven pairs, one for each day of the week, because of that lifetime warranty. I bought four different kinds as an experiment and am happy so far!

3 - 📗 Thanks for the Feedback Book - I just finished processing this book, which I read in 2021. It refreshed my memory on what a powerful book it is on the concept of feedback. It covers the major triggers (truth, relationship, and identity) and how to navigate them. It took me over two hours to process my notes because of all the connections and concepts it covered. I highly recommend this if you're interested in how to improve receiving feedback in service of your development.

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Deeper Dive

Do you remember the last time you joined a company or otherwise entered a new group?

The new group probably used their own vocabulary. There were acronyms and special terms galore. As the new person you were likely overwhelmed by this; it's like these people were speaking a different language!

As the new person, you probably wrote down terms or phrases that you didn't understand so you could research them on your own. Slowly, as you heard the terms spoken, saw them written, and did your own research, you became just like the rest of the group. You used the language with ease and probably didn't even realize you were doing it.

This anecdote is a simple example of how the mind works. How it incorporates new knowledge with existing knowledge and uses it for recall and application - something called semantic memory.

Today I'll share details about this process, how to improve your semantic memory, and how to use it to be more effective.

The brain has two long-term memory modes, called semantic memory and episodic memory.

Semantic memory is how we store concepts, facts, and ideas. Episodic memory is for the lived experiences. As an example, the idea of a dog is stored in your semantic memory, whereas the episodic memory stores that time you snuggled your dog on the couch while you were home sick.

An analogy for semantic memory is that it looks like a spider web. Ideas aren’t just sitting there as these isolated little balls of thought, they’re connected to each other. Some ideas are more heavily trod and have numerous robust connections (like the idea of a dog). Some are more isolated with very few and weak connections (possibly the concept of semantic memory itself if it’s not something you’ve heard of until today).

Those well-trod pathways and ideas are more easily recalled. You’re very unlikely to forget the concept of a dog, but some of the things you rarely think of take a lot more processing power for your brain to go find.

This is also why it’s important to take things from your short-term memory into the long-term semantic layer.

For example, what if you try to just memorize what someone said instead of wrestling with and internalizing the concepts yourself? When you do that, those are individual words, not ideas, and your brain treats them like a random phone number. They’re dropped very quickly and no connections to your semantic memory were made.

Instead, you need to take the words and understand the underlying ideas. By processing these ideas and drawing connections you’re building up the semantic memory web.

Let’s build on this idea of how to improve your semantic memory next. I’ll share four different ideas:
- Spaced Repetition
- Syntopical Reading
- Noticing Gaps
- Visual Encoding

Spaced Repetition. This is the simple idea of reviewing things over time. Instead of learning something once and not touching it again, the idea is that you’d have a process to review the facts and ideas over time.

You’d start with frequent review when things are new (e.g. the day after you were introduced). The spacing increases as you have confidence in your answers because your brain is demonstrating mastery of the topic.

Ali Abdaal does a good job explaining this idea here (timestamp is 10:25 if it doesn't start there). You can bail once he starts selling you on his Skillshare course 🙂

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Syntopical Reading. This approach came to me by way of Mortimer Adler’s “How to Read a Book.” Syntopical Reading is where you read many books on the same topic and then mix all of those ideas into your own thoughts on the subject.

I’ve known about this approach for years, and have often read many books on one topic, but have not incorporated any intentionality around processing those thoughts and turning them into my own. Yes, my brain would do some of that on its own just through the act of reading, but it’s only recently that I started to be intentional about syntopical reading, which I do through what I call my book synthesis process.

I’ll save a bunch of the process details for another time, but to give some insight, I’ve started to sit down on the weekends and go through the books I’ve read. I review my highlighted notes and process them in Obsidian. I write in my own words and I draw connections to other books. I also create concept pages and then elaborate on specific concepts drawing from multiple sources.

In fact, Obsidian’s Knowledge Graph is a great visual representation of the spider web concept! In the image below each dot is a page. The size of the dot depends on the frequency of its use throughout Obsidian.

You’ll notice that I’ve got some ideas that are standalone islands. They will never come up while exploring existing pathways.

I also have some well-worn paths and heavily used ideas. Those things are more easy for me to recall.

Noticing Gaps. If something feels like it’s going over your head, that’s a clue that your brain doesn’t have any spider web in that area.

When that happens, take note of what you’re struggling with so you can come back to it later. When you get free time come back to do your own research on the topic.

If it’s a big gnarly topic, break it down into smaller pieces. The smaller ones can be processed and they’ll start building back up to the larger topic.

You can also incorporate analogies and stories. As you’re doing your research, see if there are any stories that illustrate the topic. These are great at building different kinds of connections, and humans are really good at remembering stories (which is why we have all those fables that have been passed down through the ages).

Visual Encoding. Lastly, remember that your brain is really good at multimedia. You don’t have to rely on written and spoken words to build connections. You can use visual language as part of the encoding.

Whether an idea is new or old, see if you can illustrate the idea. Jump on a whiteboard or grab your notepad. Translate text and words into visuals.

The act itself is a powerful way to build on the semantic memory because you’re actively processing the idea. It may also build connections you didn’t realize as you work in a visual medium. Visuals are also relatively easy to remember, so can aid in recall.

Now we know of at least four ways to help us build out our semantic memory. We can review things over time (spaced repetition), read and process multiple sources (syntopical reading), become aware of gaps so we can fill them (notice gaps), and use illustrations (visual encoding).

Let’s look at some ways to leverage semantic memory before wrapping it up.

Build those Connections! Be intentional about building those connections! Pull things into your long-term memory by wresting with ideas. Reflect on your learning. The more connections you place to an idea the more readily it’ll come up in practice.

A spider web with a lot of connections will be much stronger than one with just a few nodes and lines.

Jiggling I don’t think this is an official term, but if you think about the web of connections, then you can improve recall by ‘jiggling’ the parts of the web you might need. Just like in a real web, tugging on one part will then pull on other parts.

You can use this to your advantage by priming yourself before you need something.

In just one example, if you’re going to host a Q&A with an audience about something, talk with audience members beforehand. Find a quiet area and just run through some of the main beats of your topic out loud. Scan your notes.

All those things are little jiggles that warm up connections and can smooth out recall when you’re actively engaged with others.

Being intentional about the practices here can be a really powerful habit over time. You've got multiple techniques to build out your web of connections, you can seek out new information, and then jiggle the web to bring things to the fore.

As a simple way to start this week, how about taking 15 minutes after a long meeting to reflect on what you just experienced. Try to summarize and list the main points from the discussion. What do those ideas connect to? Can you illustrate any of the key concepts?

Let me know how it goes!

If you've already got some practices in place, I'd love to learn from you. Just reply back to this email and share your experience.

Kevin 😃