Learning starts when new information from the world enters your working memory — but only if you're paying attention. Working memory is a small thinking space that holds just a few ideas at once. To keep something, you have to focus on it, make sense of it, and practise using it. That's how it moves into your long-term memory, where real learning lives. Every time you remember something, that memory gets stronger. Ignore it, and it fades.

The seven phases below are seven ways of looking after that small thinking space — from the moment you walk into a lesson to long after it ends. Work through them in order, or jump to any one.

👇 Tap a number on the diagram, or use the steps in the panel.
ENVIRONMENTAll the information around you — what you see, hear and read. ATTENTIONThe doorway to your memory. Only what you focus on gets in. Learning Remembering ForgottenWhat happens to learning you never revisit. Beat it by recalling and reusing what you learn. LONG TERM MEMORY Where learning is stored for the long run. The goal is to get knowledge to stick here. WORKINGYour brain's small thinking space. It can only juggle a few ideas at a time, so don't overload it. MEMORY

Bring it together

The one idea behind all 7 phases

Every phase above is really solving the same problem. Your thinking happens in a very small space, and that space fills up fast. The seven phases are seven ways of protecting it.

Key ideas

The words that keep coming up. Any on this page can be tapped for a quick reminder.