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Those of you who have been following my posts this summer know that I’ve read a large quantity of books these past two months. Because of my daily commute that takes up three hours of my day, Monday through Friday, I have gotten more reading done this summer than any other period in my life prior.

In these sorts of circumstances, I find it very necessary to dedicate a period of time to pause, reflect, and act on everything I’ve read.

In the month of August, I’m going to stop reading new materials and instead focus entirely on reflection and putting what I’ve learned into action. I strongly believe that periods of sustained learning should be followed by periods of reflection and action to reinforce that knowledge within you and in your life.

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

-Edmund Burke

Failure to reflect can often result in quickly forgetting what you’ve learned. That’s why students who learn all semester, take a final, and then have winter/summer break find themselves forgetting what they’ve learned within a few weeks. For these students, where is the reflection and action once the class is over? Cramming for a final doesn’t seem to count because most students don’t approach a final as a chance to reflect on the semester’s teachings and practice their knowledge over a period of time. Most students cram a few days before the exam, which then leads to forgetting all of that knowledge within hours of the final being over.

As a student, I’ll be the first to admit that once finals are over, all I care about is planning my winter or summer break. And over that break I slowly forget everything I learned in the previous semester. It’s usually the case that unless a student gets an internship to utilize the skills he/she just learned in a course, those skills will be gradually lost.

As another example, throughout my college career I had inadvertently been practicing the concept of reflection and action with Microsoft Excel. I took a class in my freshman year and learned an immense amount about Excel, but quickly forgot everything I’d learned once summer break began. During my sophomore and junior years I kept periodically refreshing my knowledge because I understood how important it is to know how to use Excel. My internship this summer has helped me to solidify this knowledge through daily use of Excel for data analysis. Through my daily use of Excel this summer, it has become second nature to me.

I’ve read so much about motivation, productivity, success, lifestyle design, and goals this summer, I’m ready to start using this knowledge to help me knock off items on my bucket list. I plan to:

1. Begin teaching myself Japanese
2. Begin teaching myself web analytics
3. Write a free e-Book for the readers of Living For Improvement
4. Practice public speaking on motivation, productivity, and achieving goals
5. Pursue my various fitness goals
6. Reflecting on everything I’ve written on this blog since 2008

I encourage you to do this same type of pause, reflection, and action when going through extended periods of learning. Your retention rate will skyrocket.