Set a goal: Determine what you are going to study - for example, the key topics of a course or driving manual - and when you are going to do it, creating and following a timetable. Aim for shorter study sessions spaced out over time. For example, five one-hour sessions are better than one five-hour session.

Practice: Create opportunities to recall what you have learned to facilitate long-term storage of information. Online flashcard applications are very useful (there are free options such as Anki and Flashcards by NKO), but all you ultimately need is a pen and paper.

If you are a student, try to leave spaces in your lecture notes to allow you to write down ideas and concepts after class.

If you teach, incorporate informal tests into your lessons. Beyond modelling the technique, this also helps students maintain their attention, take better notes and reduce test anxiety.

Consolidate your success: Check your work and track your progress over time. If you are able to remember something most of the time, you can reduce the frequency of reviewing that content and replace it with new content as you progress. Deliberate recall of information is the essential ingredient for successive re-learning. So make sure you anchor it in your memory by writing it down and committing to a response before checking your notes or textbook.

Remember that without deliberate recall practice, little of the information will end up in your long-term memory, preventing effective long-term learning.

So put down your highlighter and try something new. Simply thinking about a topic regularly and remembering related details gives you a real chance of success.

Beware of cramming

Successive re-learning may seem difficult compared to typical (but ineffective) strategies like highlighting and re-reading.

If you have been a student who crammed the night before an exam, you may know that it can work to pass the test. But what students don't realise is how quickly they forget the content they learn so intensively.

This means that learners may misidentify cramming as an easy and effective strategy and avoid more difficult, but more effective strategies such as successive re-learning which actually promotes long-term retention.