Learning happens because people are able to connect new information with what they already know. Good instructors facilitate the making of those connections, allowing information to move from working memory (temporary storage) into longer-term memory. Who is a good learner? One who can make those connections on their own… they have, as you said, the ability to cross-index information.

if i were a teacher, i would try and connect the new information to as
many varied examples as possible. As such different situations come up
in life, they will (to the attentive student) trigger a reminder and
increase the overall retaining percentage. this is, of course, much
easier to do in a field like marketting than let’s say, biochemistry.

speaking of lateral connections, i had read somewhere (and i forget
where lol) that one definition of intelligence is the ability to
relate a learned concept to as many seemingly unrelated scenarios as
possible. or in database terms, the ability to cross-index
information.

(half-life’s are used in order not to get into “Xeno” style messiness
where the curve never reaches the end… the half way point is a nice
constant reference point.)

My personal belief and system – and i’m glad to see it supported with
what u wrote – is to make multiple correlation with the new material,
as diverse as possible.

relate a cooking concept to a business concept, seeing the Krebs cycle
in a flower (ok im pushing it), etc.. lateral connections.

eggs are supposed to be cooked using slow heat.

even if fried.

but i guess the punch of the message is kinda lost then…