You can probably remember the lyrics to a song you have not heard in years, and if it came on now, you would likely be able to sing along without even thinking about it, every word in the right order, almost automatically. Personally I can perform a one woman show of Hamilton (get in touch if you want this to happen) and still know all the words of theme tunes from the 90s.
But then you sit down to revise a definition that you looked at yesterday, and it has completely gone. You read it again, it makes perfect sense at the time, you feel like you understand it, and then a few hours later, it has disappeared again.
So what is going on here?
Because it is not that you have a bad memory, and I think this is the part that is worth challenging. You are clearly able to remember things, whether that is song lyrics, conversations, faces, or things people have said to you years ago. Your brain is more than capable of storing and retrieving information, so the issue is not your ability to remember, it is how that information is being learned in the first place.
When you think about how you learn song lyrics, you are not just reading them once and hoping they stick. You are hearing them repeatedly, often without even trying, there is rhythm and pattern which makes them easier to follow, and there is usually some form of emotion or association attached to the song itself. You might find yourself singing along, even if it is only in your head, and over time, that repeated exposure combined with active engagement makes the information very easy to retrieve.
Now compare that to how most people approach revision.
They tend to read through notes, perhaps highlight a few key points, and then move on to the next page. There is very little repetition, very little active engagement, and often no real attempt to retrieve the information from memory. It feels productive in the moment, because you are looking at the content and it makes sense, but very little of it is actually being stored in a way that you can access later.
If you want to improve your memory, the focus needs to shift slightly. It is less about how many times you read something, and more about how many times you try to recall it without looking.
This might mean closing your notes and trying to write out a definition from memory, or explaining a concept out loud as if you were teaching it to someone else, or regularly testing yourself even if you know you are likely to get things wrong. These are the moments where learning actually happens, because you are forcing your brain to retrieve the information rather than simply recognise it.
It will feel harder, and it will often feel slower, because you are much more aware of the gaps in your knowledge, but that is exactly the point of the exercise.
Memory is not built through passive reading, it is built through effort, repetition, and retrieval.
So the next time you find yourself thinking that you have a bad memory, it might be worth pausing and asking a slightly different question.
Is it really your memory that is the problem, or is it the method you are using to try and remember?