That's what I always tell myself, except by the time I need to redo a similar task, months have passed and I have to re-read the documentation again.

Yeah, I have/had the same problem. I've started using spaced repetition to retain what I've done.

Check this out, spaced repetition for learning how to code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshXDo8psj8

Essentially, every time you encounter friction with something you write it down in Anki.

Anki then takes care of presenting the information to you based on how well you're able to recall.

After confusing Array.prototype.slice() and Array.prototype.splice() one too many times, I finally added it to Anki. I don't confuse them anymore.

Thanks for the recommendation, this is exactly the type of things I need. It suspect it will even be useful for my music theory learning!

Basically how I got my career underway. Here take over this process to manually crunch these numbers for 7 hours a day.

Couple weeks later after learning python, okay those take 5 minutes of human time to run. I made it a point to always automate regardless of time saved/wasted.

Paid off big for my career.

I learned this after I purchased a CNC for woodworking. A CNC is an amazing tool for so many jobs - and a horrible one for others. For some tasks, despite seeming repetitive and CNCable, manual woodworking tools speed up the process and the quality of the job.

An example: Adding chamfers to cutting boards. Sure, this could be done with a 45 degree bit in the CNC, but any deviation in board width/height/thickness means reprogramming the machine, and you can chamfer with a palm router in the time it takes just to affix the board to the CNC.