I am not sure I follow this line of thinking? You are saying that after the fact you somehow understand the context less than you did at the time of initial wri

I am not sure I follow this line of thinking? You are saying that after the fact you somehow understand the context less than you did at the time of initial writing? I find the absolute opposite to be true- At the time of the lecture or meeting or whatever, I am just trying to capture everything. What is truly important and what is noise is not clear to me at that point. Also in the beginning stages of a class or project certain concepts or decisions seem very new or foreign, and a few months later they are deeply ingrained and no more likely to be forgotten than understanding what gravity is. By far the most successful study technique I have ever used is recopying my initial notes. The second set is much more coherent, organized, and focused on the tricky bits while removing things that I thought might be important at the time but ended up not being important. I think someone did you a major disservice 30 years ago.