What Do You Remember from the Last Training?… The Coffee!

How the Brain Learns and Why We Forget Most of What We Learn

Have you ever attended a training session and, a week later, only remember the great coffee during the break? It’s not your fault. The problem lies in how most trainings are designed!

Our brain is not a hard drive where information is stored with a simple “save”. It’s a marvelous, yet unpredictable, biological system that has its own preferences for what to retain and what to discard into the oblivion of forgetting.

Let’s see how the brain actually learns and what needs to change in corporate trainings so they don’t end up on the “past and forgotten” list.

1 The “Curse” of Easy Information

If Socrates were alive today, he would tell us, “Knowledge becomes yours when you help give birth to it.” His maieutic method relied on generating knowledge within yourself through questions. The brain is naturally creative and does not like “ready-made” solutions.

What to do: Create “cognitive difficulty.” Use questions, challenges, and practical exercises that make the mind work. The brain loves effort when it leads to useful knowledge.

2 Memory Is Like a Muscle – It Needs Repetition

The famous Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve shows that 70% of information is lost within 24 hours if not reviewed. So if you conduct a training and never revisit it, your investment is wasted.

What to do: Apply “spaced repetition” – review the material at regular intervals through quizzes, microlearning, gamification, and of course Nano Learning Plans to reinforce memory.

3 Emotions: The Ultimate “Super Glue” for Memory

Have you ever wondered why you still remember that song you played on repeat at 16, but not what you ate last Tuesday? Emotions make information unforgettable.

What to do: Add storytelling, humor, and real-life stories to training. A boring presentation with statistics won’t stick. A funny story about someone failing before learning correctly – now that sticks!

4 Movement = Better Learning

The brain isn’t designed for a sedentary life. If the body stays still, the brain enters “sleep mode.” This is why post-lunch training often feels like relaxation time before a nap.

What to do: Introduce movement! Use role-playing, exercises requiring movement, or even “walking meetings” where learning happens on the go.

5 Social Learning: When Dialogue Beats Slide Decks

The brain is social and learns better through interaction. If your training is just a speaker monologuing, participants are probably already thinking about what they’ll eat for dinner.

What to do: Include discussions, group work, and peer learning. People remember best what they share with others.

Conclusion: Make Trainings “Unforgettable”

If you want your organization’s trainings to be effective, don’t let participants’ brains get bored or hit “delete” once the session ends.

▪️ Challenge them, connect learning with emotion…
▪️ Give them time to absorb, and most importantly…
▪️ Keep them alert.

This way, instead of only remembering the coffee break, they’ll also remember what they learned!