So how to NOT forget whatever I have learned before?

I’m learning how to do web design at the moment, but somehow I have forgotten everything I have learned at the beginning 3 days ago (I have a lot of free time, so 3 days ago I’m just starting to learn HTML, and now I’m learning CSS at the moment, but I forgot everything I have learned besides the basic tags). Help?

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@AltFantasy

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice. – Anton Chekhov

You can practice. Try using everything that you have learned when practicing. You will never forget. You can create many projects, it can be not good. It is okay.

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Hi @AltFantasy !

Welcome to the forum!

It is common to forget concepts especially if all of this is brand new.

No one is expected to remember everything because there is to much to remember.
That is why documentation exists. :grinning:

Review what you can and when you get to the projects, that is where you will retain more information.

Hope that helps!

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but what if I forgot everything I need to have and use for the practice? Cause I’m known for forgetting anything I have done after 5 minutes (as of right now I’m learning Applied Visual Design, but I forgot many things I learned before)

Then you look it up. Programmers look stuff up constantly.

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…only then to forgot the whole thing one or two minutes later!

The more you look stuff up and use it, the more will stick. There is no magic wand, only practice.

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It is important to remember that you just started.
And you haven’t built any projects yet which is understandable because you are still learning the basics.

We were all in your position of learning something new and forgetting everything.

But you will start to remember the concept once you practice them through projects.

I would just keep going through the course and at the end you will have plenty of practice to apply what you have learned.

And as mentioned earlier, when you forget things, just look up the concepts.
There is no shame in that. :grinning:

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don't worry and never give up. You'll get used to all these.
Coding is like speaking a language.
good luck.

Maybe, not if I’m grinding freeCodeCamp straight up for 9 hours everyday

But have you started the projects yet?

That is the only way you are going to start to remember these concepts that you learn in the challenges.

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Write a Document on what you have learned like

<br> - Breaks a line
<a href="#">Cat Pics</a> - links text to the specified link in the href="#"

… and so on

or you can go on google and search it up like if you forgot how to make a line go across the screen.

This video is one of the best things you can do for your learning process.

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It’s important to “save your progress”.

For some people, taking notes helps.

For most people, applying what you have learned is critical.

Have you applied what you have learned?

For example, can you make a basic heading, followed by a paragraph, followed by a button? Which parts are tricky/challenging for you? Which parts did you need to look up?

The goal here, I believe, is not to perfectly memorize everything. As @JeremyLT and @jwilkins.oboe both say, you may need to look up syntax or steps a number of times before “it sticks” in your brain.

Does any of the advice so far help?

Last thought: It might be that you are pushing yourself too hard, too fast. There is only so much you can memorize in a given day.

Pro-tip: If you want to cram lots and have a chance of memorizing what you cram, consider looking into a program like Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ and here on the freeCodeCamp forums: Best Developer Related Anki Decks?

You have used that word multiple times. The word concept is an important concept.

In a perfect world authors would communicate concepts and students would benefit from many years of experience. I have not seen an author that can do that; what they do instead is communicate an abundance of details. So you need to experience many details and eventually you will acquire some fundamental concepts and then it is easy to look up the details. I am constantly frustrated by all the details and often wish I could get the concepts provided to me and then the details would be easy. Unless you can find an author that can do that you need to wade through the details and eventually you will get the idea and then it will be easier to remember the details.

@AltFantasy I suggest that if you learn something in the morning, later on in the day repeat what you have learned from scratch, without looking at what you learned earlier in the day. Afterwards compare the two exercises to see how well you did. The next day try to redo what you learned from scratch again. You will start to remember things.

But no one really remembers every detail of what they have created. You will have to look things up. You should remember that at one point you knew how to create something in the past. Then you just look up the old code you wrote earlier.

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That’s good advice.
It sounds like space repetition.

I have done that with algorithm challenges.
I will revisit challenges from the interview prep section and try to solve it a different way.

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I guess for experience you can do two things: little programming challenges/projects and study things related on your field and programming. Example: you study Biology and programming, try to combine both in one project, so not only you will forgot less your stuff, but you are studying twice while doing something useful for yourself and others!

Your brain isn’t going to keep remembering information just because you want it to. It has to be useful information, which usually involves using it enough (or being in a heightened state of awareness, i.e. survival instinct). Just like if you cram hard enough for a test you can get a good score but you will forget everything again soon after that because you aren’t using the information for anything.

Forgetting something and then remembering it again is actually a super-efficient way to teach your brain it is information you would like to keep around.

All technical jobs involve using reference material. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. all look up information regularly. It is just too much information to keep it all at the ready.

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Let’s start it again and again - Practice makes perfect