How much of what you read do you remember? 

How much of what you hear do you remember? 

A study at the University of Minnesota found that college students and business professionals were able to recall about 50% of what they heard right after a short lecture. For most of us, we can’t always recall the key points of an article we read or a lecture we heard. And while in school we learned to read, most of us have never been taught to listen!

Listening is a communication skill that we often take for granted and never use to its full potential. Fortunately there are tips that will improve your listening skills.Thanks to this great article at the1thing.com, we can improve our listening skills. You can read the full article yourself here – but I have a short summary following:

We can be trained to listen. 

You should minimize distractions while you listen. 

Don’t get sidetracked with your own thoughts.

We can listen between the lines between what is being spoken.

Don’t try to memorize details but grasp the idea of the facts.

Keep an open mind and listen to the speaker before making a final judgement. 

Also write a followup summary shortly after listening to a portion of an audio book.

And one more tip – share what you learn with someone else. That alone will help you retain what you heard. Long ago I learned that once you hear a story or a joke, tell that same story or joke to another person as soon as you can and you will remember it for almost ever!

So, the next time you hear a great story, joke, podcast or audiobook keep these tips in mind and when you try to tell someone else about it, you won’t have forgotten ⅔ of it and stumble all over yourself, making them wonder if you really read it at all!

Hope this helps…