Strategies to retaining textbook information?

NoNameNoob

This is a pretty noob question but I am hoping to optimize my time studying.. In general my go to for learning is educational videos but I want to be able to utilize books more though. Would this strategy look ok?

1) Read cover to cover copy pasting selected segments/key ideas into your notes to review later

2) Make flashcards out of the notes

3) Go through the flashcards once in the morning and once at night for x amount of weeks (hoping for long term memory)

4) Recite the information from the flashcards into your own words for x amount of weeks (to get comfortable speaking about it in person w/ others. (personal goal))

5) Rinse and Repeat

Any advice is appreciated as I have started to study for the CCIE written which is a lot of text!

kaiju

Break out your pen and paper so you can do some imprinting.

This is what I do for items that are difficult to retain:

Notate information in clear cursive writing. Read what you wrote several times and then move on. 

thomas_

In the past I have taken hard copy notes as I read the book with pen and paper.  I then type up my notes onto my computer.  I’ve been wanting to go the flashcard route because I think it’s beneficial, but it seems like by the time I finish my study materials, type up my notes, and make flash cards, I’m sick of studying and just take the test.

I’m thinking about just typing my notes directly into a flash card app(Anki) in the form of questions, so I don’t have to retype them.  I think hand-writing them and typing them up does help me, but I’m trying to experiment and see if just typing my notes as flashcards and reviewing is as effective as my previous study habits.

I read an article some where that had some graphs and the basic gist of it was that the more times you review something in the weeks after you first learn it, the more information you retain over a longer period of time.

I’ve seen a different graph that said the best way to learn something is to teach someone else.  The second best way to learn something is to actually do it.