How To Absorb Everything You Read Like A Sponge

For over a decade, learning coaching has revealed a critical biological barrier hardwired into the human brain that actively prevents the swift absorption of new information. This process, known as encoding—taking information and storing it in memory—is limited by the brain's capacity for physical remodeling at a microscopic level. Researchers suggest this limitation acts as an inbuilt defense mechanism against making too many rapid changes, which could potentially be harmful.

That feeling you get when you're reading something really dense and really detailed and you feel overwhelmed and you feel like that information is just leaking out of your brain and you cannot hold on to it.

This sensation of being overwhelmed while engaging with detailed material signifies reaching the brain's biological limit for immediate processing. While increasing the raw processing power of the brain is difficult, specific techniques can be employed to help the brain process this new input more efficiently, thereby easing the encoding process and facilitating sponge-like absorption.

Faster encoding hinges on meeting three primary conditions: intention, relevance, and familiarity. Intention is the basic desire and effort to understand and retain something. Relevance pertains to how significant the new information is perceived to be, often because it connects to existing knowledge or other new concepts being learned. Familiarity relates to the degree of similarity between the new material and what the learner already knows.

The typical approach to learning involves controlling only intention; struggling learners often simply try harder to remember. However, relevance and familiarity are often left to chance. When reading dense textbooks, details are frequently unfamiliar and their relevance is obscured, placing an artificial limit on how much information can be encoded and the speed at which this occurs.

The first component of the advanced learning method, remembered by the acronym L2R2, is Layman's terms (L1). This involves describing complex information simply, stripping away specialized terminology. For example, stating that effective learning means thinking harder is a layman's explanation of a concept involving higher intrinsic cognitive load. Applying this initial simplification to dense material like journal articles or lecture slides dramatically enhances understanding.

This simplification works because unfamiliar terminology and dense concepts are converted into simple ideas that the learner is already familiar with, thus increasing familiarity. Furthermore, when concepts are simple, it becomes easier to see how they influence or impact other knowledge areas, thereby increasing perceived relevance. This entire preparatory process can take less than ten minutes.

Visual processing is tens of thousands of times more efficient than reading ability. Seeing a simple image explaining a concept aids comprehension far more efficiently than even a highly simplified textual summary. The speaker also references a free weekly newsletter where such learning science tips are distilled into quick, layman's term emails, potentially saving dozens of hours monthly through efficiency gains.

The second L stands for Layering. Layering learning is crucial when dealing with dense material because absorbing everything in one pass, even after a layman's explanation, can still be overwhelming. Layering means taking control of the learning sequence by deliberately seeking out information that feels immediately relevant or familiar first, connecting those pieces before addressing more obscure details.

If a section seems overly detailed or unfamiliar, the learner should skip it temporarily, marking it for later review. When returning to these skipped sections after building a base layer of knowledge, understanding comes much faster because more context is available. Complexity simply results from many simple things combined; if it feels complicated, it means the simple components are not yet known.

The first R is Relevance Framing, which compares effective learning to solving a jigsaw puzzle. New information must be contextualized by asking where it fits into the larger picture of established knowledge. If a piece is forced into the wrong spot or held without context, it is inevitably forgotten. Most learners fail because they only focus on intention rather than actively framing the relevance of each new piece.

To create effective relevance frames, learners should examine test questions or end-of-chapter questions before diving into the content. This establishes what knowledge will be required. Learners must then actively consider how they will apply this knowledge in professional or real-world settings—what problems it solves, and why it matters. If struggling to define relevance, tools like ChatGPT can assist by answering, "Why would I need to know this?"

The final component, the second R, is Real Estate, referring to mental capacity. This principle applies throughout the entire L2R2 process. The human brain has finite mental capacity; attempting to track and remember every idea encountered in a textbook will quickly lead to cognitive overload, regardless of intelligence or experience.

The goal is to dedicate precious mental resources solely to processing and understanding ideas and fitting them into the big picture. The most effective method for protecting this mental real estate is thinking on paper—using note-taking as a cognitive offload. Learners should document thoughts, connections, and perceived gaps instead of trying to hold these complex relationships mentally.

Your notes should be a reflection of their thinking process. You should be able to see the process of how ideas initially start scattered and disorganized and how slowly they start organizing together to form a cohesive picture.

While protecting mental real estate does not directly increase intention, relevance, or familiarity, it makes the application of those other three factors significantly easier by ensuring the brain's processing power remains focused on understanding the core concepts.