If you can’t remember the information, it isn’t you…. it’s everyone.

Whether you are training a new sales team member, educating students on 18th century fashion or walking a customer through how to better use your products, the goal is the same: You want the information you are delivering to be understood, retained and even implemented.

Sadly, no matter how interesting your approach, how exciting your presentation or how unique the presentation format is, those you are teaching will NOT remember very much of it.

Never fear! You are NOT alone. This is simply the way that it is with everyone out there. We all are subject to the little known -- but commonly experienced -- forgetting curve.

The forgetting curve -- commonly attributed to German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus -- is a mathematical formula that describes the rate at which something is forgotten after it is initially learned.

Turns out, our brain is always doing spring cleaning. Unless the information is deemed important, our brain gets rid of it. So, information that we don't use every day, or that isn't important to our survival, is often discarded within the first day.

When people first learn about the forgetting curve, they experience a couple different emotions that you may now be feeling as well…

First they tend to feel comforted. They feel a sense of comfort knowing they are not alone when their brains forget information they work to retain. There is a weird, even morbid, peace of mind that comes from knowing you are not the only one who ends up in the kitchen pantry with NO remembrance of what brought you to the snack closet in the first place.    

Secondly, people’s minds are blown because they now realize how unrealistic it is to meet with their sales team once a quarter and present to them everything they need to know about products in order to increase future sales.

Maybe their minds are blown because they are thinking of that 90-day onboarding program -- you know, the one their company invested time, money and energy on with the goal of increasing employee retention -- may NOT actually give new hires all that they need to hit the ground running?

They may now believe that their best efforts to educate and bring about results through teaching may be dang near impossible?!         

Turns out, though, that there is a way to combat the learning curve. Ebbinghaus discovered that the practice of “spaced repetition” (where material is learned and then reviewed after increasingly large time gaps) can help us retain more of the important information we consume.

So, how can you put spaced repetition into practice? Well, first you need your curriculum. Then, you need a training schedule (so you can schedule initial and then reinforcement trainings). Then, you need a way to monitor its effectiveness.

Sounds like a lot of work, right?

That’s where Tovuti comes in. Tovuti is an end-to-end learning management system that helps you implement your education programs with technology. Your trainings become better, more interactive and even social. You can track the effectiveness of these programs over time. And, you can scale your programs quickly, without a ton of time and effort.

By leveraging the power of Tovuti, you can deliver the repetition that is needed to truly have those you are teaching retain the information you are delivering.

And, in doing so, you can knock that learning curve out of the park.