Root Method: From Passive Reading to Active Learning

Extract the best from each reading

Apr 29, 2025

🏷️ Categories: Literature, Learning, Memory.

It’s frustrating, but it’s happened to you too.

We immerse ourselves in books because we seek to understand the world, to develop new skills, to change the way we think. But if you're like me - or like so many voracious readers - have you ever finished a book that inspired you, that you even talked about with a friend, but a few weeks later...

You can barely remember anything.

Maybe you feel like you could get more out of your reading —all those hours and all that wisdom that end up going nowhere, unorganized, not put into practice… Today, I want to share with you the most effective minimalist method I know to fix this.

The Root Method.

You'll retain more, understand better, and most importantly: you'll start connecting ideas across books, authors, and disciplines. Same readings, deeper learning.

What is the Root Method?

It’s based on a fundamental principle: shifting from passive reading to active learning.

Before starting a book, take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you already know about the topic you’re about to read about. Even if you think you know very little.
During your reading session, add what you learn in a different color.
Before your next session, review your sheet. During the session, return to step 2.
Store the sheets in a binder and study them periodically.

That’s it.

But what happens inside you while you do this… that’s where the magic lies.

Let’s break down each of the 4 steps:

Step 1: Before starting a book

Take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you know (or think you know) about the topic. It doesn’t matter if it's just three words or half a page. The important thing is to force your brain to recall and organize your ideas before consuming new ones.

Don't know anything? Perfect.

Write down the questions you have. Or create a mind map with scattered words. The key here is to establish your starting point. It’s a quality filter to see what beliefs you hold, what preconceptions you carry, and it opens you up to the possibility of correcting them later.

Step 2: During your reading session

After reading a section of the book (a chapter, a block of ideas, or even just a dense page), return to your sheet and add what you learned —using a different color.

This detail is crucial.

Each color represents a different reading session. Visually, you can see how your knowledge evolves. It’s not just “read and turn the page.” It’s about extracting the best from each session. Documenting your growth. Building a structure of ideas you didn’t have before.

Never copy a paragraph or idea word for word.

You must explain it in your own words, in a summarized form.

This forces you to process the information, not just store it. And while doing so, you’ll likely notice errors in what you wrote at the beginning or in previous sessions.

Awesome, right?

Correct them, cross things out, jot down the updated version. This comparison makes you think critically about what you wrote, sharpening your learning more and more.

Step 3: Before your next session

Before starting your next reading session, review your blank sheet.

It'll only take a few minutes, but this simple act refreshes your memory about what you’ve already learned and prepares you to connect the new ideas with what you already know. It transforms every learning into building blocks, session after session, allowing you to see connections that previously seemed invisible.

Recurrent keywords or technical terms.
Core ideas that structure the whole topic.
Cause-effect patterns or parallels.

In other words: you read more deeply.

Step 4: After finishing the book

You've finished the book and now have several sheets filled with colors, ideas, corrections, and notes.

Store them in a folder. That sheet is a map of your learning. A valuable resource you can review later. I recommend rewriting it neatly. Doing so forces you to synthesize again, organize your ideas definitively, and filter out the essential now that you have the full perspective.

Then, every few months, review it. Spend a few minutes.

This simple, repeated act embeds the information into your long-term memory —it’s called spaced repetition, and it’s the most effective technique for retaining knowledge for years.

Why does it work so well?

Because it combines 3 powerful learning principles in one simple action: writing.

1. It naturally applies the Feynman Technique

When you write and structure what you learn in your own words, you force yourself to explain it clearly. You don’t just repeat —you truly understand what you read.

And that’s harder than regular note-taking… but also far more effective.

Every connection between concepts, every outline, every review is an opportunity to detect mistakes or gaps. Rewriting is learning because it pushes you to make sense of what’s inside you, just as Feynman recommended.

2. It leverages spaced repetition

Spaced repetition is the most effective way to memorize long-term.

Every time you review your sheet before a new session, you’re refreshing your memory right when you need it. You fight the forgetting curve with small doses of active recall. And when you rewrite the sheet cleanly at the end, you create a distilled version of the essentials —a synthesis your mind can retain.

That’s knowledge you’ve worked for, connected, and internalized.

3. It avoids the collector’s fallacy

The collector’s fallacy is the idea that hoarding PDFs, highlighting everything, and taking endless notes equals learning.

No.

That just fills your folders with unprocessed data. With the blank sheet method, you can’t hide. You only write down what you truly understand, and you only keep what makes sense to you. You store less information, but you learn more. You don’t just collect ideas: you craft them. And that extra effort makes each sheet packed with real knowledge.

That’s why it works. Because it simplifies, repeats, and refines.

It’s not enough to know: you have to understand.

The Root Method isn’t just for books; it works for any learning process: courses, conferences, YouTube videos, podcasts. You don’t need complicated apps or anything fancy —just paper and colored pens.

Don’t stay at the surface of knowledge —dig down to the root of every topic.

You’ll notice the change instantly.

✍️ Your turn: What methods do you use to learn from your reading?
💭 Quote of the day: "The skill I was learning was crucial: the patience to read things I could not yet understand." —Tara Westover, Educated: A Memoir.