Ever wanted to improve your ability to retain information?

The way I started doing that was taking notes in books I read. It made a HUGE difference. I’d use a post-it, and write down an EXTREMELY boiled-down version of whatever it was I wanted to remember. I’d be forced to fit my note onto a Post-It, which is a very small piece of paper. That space constraint forced me to find ways to organize the data and boil it down to bullet points and core concepts, and I’d never use more than one note per page.

Once I finished a book, I’d go transcribe those notes and create sort of a Cliff’s Notes of my own. The whole time I’m writing them down and then transcribing them, the ideas are bouncing around in my head, and I’d be able to remember them better because they have more time to soak in.

But here’s the good bit: Learning to interpret data and force yourself to boil it down trains you to automatically look for that information AS YOU READ, instead of as you take the note. The more you do it, the more your brain gets used to instantaneously distilling information down to its most potent, least reducible form. :)

Eventually my need for taking notes reduced drastically, because not only did I get a feel for exactly what kind of information I was looking for and how to find it, but my memory improved too. I mean, think about it… which is easier, remembering three bullet points, or an entire chapter? If you can break it down on the fly, in your brain, the data’s more likely to stick.

I do this with everything. To-Do lists, driving directions, grocery lists, etc. I figure if I keep it up long enough, I’ll be some sort of crazy memorization ninja!

Take notes. :)

My spam filter caught about 1500 comment spams since last night. There’s no way I can filter through all that by hand, so if your comment gets accidentally filtered out, PLEASE email me to let me know. Sorry for the trouble.

I just noticed that the nine-year anniversary of the release of Quake 2 was yesterday. I remember buying it the day it came out because I wanted to mod for it, because I’d been making art for Quake 1 for several months already. I guess that means I’ve been doing game art for over nine years, and working professionally on published titles for almost six years.

Weird, I never think about how much time has passed. I still feel like a newbie. :)

Ah well. Just a pretty startling observation for me.

I found this over on LifeHacker today and thought it was pretty sweet.

Here’s the direct article link: A Primer on Electronic Communication

Basically it’s a guide on how to guarantee responses to your emails. It’s a pretty good read and applies directly to the game industry and applying for jobs or contract work. It’s a good read.

Here’s a couple useful snippets:

Write a clear and descriptive subject line. The reason for carefully crafting the subject line is two-fold. First, you want to make sure your message is not filtered out by a program as spam. Second, you want to make sure the recipient does not delete your note manually, assuming it is unwanted junk mail.

and

State your reason for contact. Start out by explaining why you are contacting the person. If you have a more elaborate question, first just state the general motivation in a sentence and proceed with more details further down in the message. You want to get your point across quickly, before the recipient loses interest or thinks this is spam.

There’s a lot more in the article… go check it out!