Multitasking has become a fact of life for many of us, but research summarized on the Web site of the American Psychological Association¹ shows that trying to do several tasks at once can make it harder to remember the most important things. It is hard to focus on anything for long if your life is full of daily distractions and competing responsibilities—school, work, commuting, and family responsibilities—or if you’re not getting the sleep you need. Have you ever had the experience of walking into a room with a specific task in mind and immediately forgetting what that task was? You were probably interrupted, either by your own thoughts or by someone or something else. Or have you ever felt the panic that comes when your mind goes blank during a test, even though you studied hard and knew the material? If you spent all night studying, lack of sleep may have raised your stress level, causing you to forget what you worked hard to learn. Such experiences happen to most people at one time or another.

To do well in college and in life, it’s important that you improve your ability to remember what you read, hear, and experience. Concentration is a key element of learning and is so deeply connected to memory that you can’t really have one without the other.

The benefits of having a good memory are obvious. In college, your memory will help you retain information and earn excellent grades on tests. After college, the ability to remember important details—names, dates, and appointments—will save you energy and time, and will prevent a lot of embarrassment.

Most memory strategies tend to focus on helping you remember bits and pieces of knowledge: names, dates, numbers, vocabulary words, formulas, and so on. However, if you know the date when the Civil War began and the name of the fort where the first shots were fired but you don’t know why the Civil War was fought or how it affected history, you’re missing the point of a college education. College is a time to develop deep learning, which involves understanding the why and how behind the details. So while remembering specific facts is necessary, to do well in college and in your career, you will need to understand major themes and ideas. You will also need to improve your ability to think deeply about what you’re learning. For more on the sorts of thinking skills you need to develop in college, see the chapters on “Information Literacy and Communication” and “Thinking in College.”