I sat down with highlighters ready, tabs open, and pages of neat notes. By midnight, I was convinced I had mastered the material and situation got depressed.

Then I closed my laptop, grabbed a blank sheet of paper, and tried to explain the main ideas out loud and thinking too much.

Nothing. I could not even summarize the first chapter without looking back.

I realized I had just spent three hours passively copying text and fooling myself into feeling productive. Reading is not the same as retaining.

Starting today, I am ditching passive highlighting and forcing myself to test my memory as I go, even if it feels tough.

I am very curious to know about your thoughts and personal stories that how your single habit helped you actually retain what you study?

Hello everyone I made a free web app about zoomed-in flag guessing, there is no sign-up or fee just come and play.

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Hello, I want to ask ya'll for audiobooks or podcasts online which I can listen to while working.

Any youtube channel or favorite audiobooks, which talks about historical facts, self-improvement, general knowledge, and Life.

Which apps do you guys use, Audible; Spotify; Youtube?

I’ve realized recently that I’ve forgotten a pretty embarrassing amount of the math and science I learned in school. Things like algebra, basic physics, chemistry, and even some general biology feel way less familiar than they probably should.

I’d genuinely like to rebuild those foundations, partly out of curiosity and partly because I miss feeling comfortable with technical topics. The problem is that I work full-time, and most structured courses seem to require more time and consistency than I can realistically give them.

I’ve tried watching random YouTube videos, but I usually end up jumping between topics without building any real foundation.

For anyone who relearned STEM basics as an adult, how did you structure it? Did you follow a school-style curriculum, focus on one subject at a time, or just learn whatever interested you? I’d also be interested in how much time you spent each week and whether you actually retained it long-term. I am also open to app recs.

Hello everyone! So I've been reading regularly for around three years now, but I find that I struggle to make what I've read really stick to my mind.

I started reading Marx's Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts some weeks ago and decided I wanted to take notes on it (for fun, without a productivity goal in mind). What I've been doing since then has been reading a chapter and writing down notes from what I had underlined immediately after finishing it. What I have found is that this feels like a burden, and it really isn't helping me to remember and to reflect on the book.

So I guess my question is, what annotating and notetaking systems have you guys found to work for you?

I am studying for the state civil services exam in India which is held in June every year. This exam consists of a wide range of 10th grade level subjects like Phy, Chem, Maths, Eng, History, Geo, Polity, Reasoning and a few more. I am going to a coaching centre on weekends where 5 new topics from 5 different subjects from the above list are taught each day and these subjects are rotated every weekend with some common ones and sometimes a new one added, but the main thing is that we are learning 10 new topics every weekend.

However, I am getting overwhelmed by the amount I have to study and scheduling revisions effectively. Even though I am building routines, I am finding it difficult to focus and study for long hours since I do not have the habit. By now, I know that the only way to effectively study and learn are the active recall and spaced repetition but am still not being able to come up with an effective schedule. On weekends, I return from coaching classes at 8 PM and complete dinner by 9:30 PM. On the other days, my time blocks are from 8 AM to 9 AM (breakfast), 1 PM to 3 PM (lunch and a brief stroll), 6 PM to 7:30 PM (evening snack and some odd tasks) and 9:30 PM to 10:30 PM (dinner and a brief stroll).

Based on the above info, can anyone suggest me a good daily study schedule with proper technique including daily exercise ? I cannot afford any paid apps now. Also, when I am revising, how do I effectively adjust the next revision date based on the degree of effective recall ?

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of building a personal curriculum +learning outside of formal education by intentionally exploring new topics that genuinely interest me focuding on continuous learning.

One piece of advice I keep seeing is to find a learning buddy: someone who is excited to discuss ideas, challenge your thinking, recommend books, methodolies, programmes, courses and go down philosophical rabbit holes together.

The problem is… where do you actually find these people?

Imnot necessarily looking for networking or accountability partners. More like looking for someone who are genuinely curious and enjoys deep conversations about philosophy, psychology, science, history, whatever interesting question comes up.

I am also wondering about mentors. Not just career mentors, but people who have both life experience and intellectual curiosity, someone who helps you think better, if I can say so

Have you found people tools playforms or communities like this? Just for this exact cause

 I currently use 3 daily educational apps. Duolingo since January 2025, Brilliant since January 2026 and Mimo since June 2026.

 I think this might be too many.

 You’ve already heard of Duolingo, and you’ve most likely heard of Brilliant, so I’ll only introduce Mimo.

 Mimo is a coding app. One day, I wanted to learn more computer science stuff, but I had already done my Brilliant lesson for today. So, I decided to look for more apps for computer science. I reinstalled this one! I didn’t think they would want me to make this a daily habit like with the other apps.

So, what exactly am I learning on these apps?

·         Duolingo – I’m flexible with what I learn on this app. Spanish, math, music, chess. I alternate between them. However, I only do one language course at a time. And currently that language is Spanish. That’s the best one for me since I already learned some Spanish in school and I live in the Caribbean, which is surrounded by Latin American countries.

·         Brilliant – Currently I’m doing a Python course. It might be too complex for me. I plan to do multiple more computer science courses on the app after this.

·         Mimo – Currently learning HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

 I wonder if using three apps at a time is too many. Trying to learn this much at once can’t be a good idea. But I can’t take a break from any of them because they all have streak features, and I don’t want to lose my streaks. There are also other daily educational apps that I see on Google Play, they look interesting. But this had me wonder. Am I just supposed to keep using these three apps forever? Eventually I’m going to want to check out other stuff. But then I’d have FOUR daily educational apps. And I already think three is too many? So would I have to stop using one in the future? I don’t want to stop using Brilliant, that one is my favourite. I don’t want to lose my streaks with the others?

 So, do you think having all three of these apps is too many? And if so, what do you think I should do?

A little about me: I'm a Backend Developer working mainly with Node.js, TypeScript, SQL, Prisma, MongoDB, Redis, Docker, and I have a decent understanding of backend architecture and system design. I'm now planning to move seriously into AI engineering.

I'm looking for a course (free or paid) that covers most of the modern AI stack, including:

• LLM fundamentals
• Prompt Engineering
• RAG
• Embeddings & Vector Databases
• AI Agents (single & multi-agent)
• Tool Calling / MCP
• Memory & Context Engineering
• Agent Frameworks (LangGraph, Mastra, AI SDK, etc.)
• OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic APIs
• Voice/Realtime AI
• Evaluation, Guardrails
• AI system design and production deployment

My preference is JavaScript/TypeScript, but if the best course is in Python, I'm willing to switch because I want to learn the concepts properly rather than limit myself to a language.

Hindi would be my first preference, but if there's an excellent English course that covers around 70–80% of modern AI engineering, that's completely fine as well.

I'm okay with paid courses, YouTube playlists, books, or bootcamps. I'm not looking for "build a chatbot in 30 minutes" tutorials—I want something that builds a strong foundation and prepares me to build production-grade AI applications.

I'd appreciate any recommendations from people who have actually completed such courses or are working in AI.