forget - eolas | Knowledge For All

An invitation to clear space, question habits, and carry less. By Hans Sandkuhl, eolas - 8 minutes read There is something satisfying about ticking a box when you learn. You learned something, applied it, crossed it off. Progress is usually measured by how much we add: new tools, new courses, new habits. It feels safe to treat growth as accumulation. Yet lately, I have started wondering if that is the full picture, or even the right one. Not long ago, someone close to me told me they felt stuck. They were in the middle of a career shift, had signed up for two different learning programmes, changed their schedule, and even joined a new online community to stay motivated. Still, nothing clicked. I asked what had changed in how they worked or thought. They said, “I have been adding, seeking new topics, consuming more and more articles, diversifying the areas, but nothing has changed. Maybe I need something else.” That moment stayed with me. We mainly approach growth as a task list; the need to add new topics to an already long collection. But what if the right approach is to actually remove something first? I think the real turning point could come when we learn to forget! Allow me to elaborate. A Silent Weight of The Familiar There is a strange comfort I feel in some routines, even ones that no longer serve us. The typical weekly report nobody reads. A planning ritual that drains more than it aligns. An outdated piece of advice we keep repeating because it once helped or makes us look relevant. They stay in place longer than necessary not because they work, but because we have never questioned them out loud. The same happens in learning. We pick up frameworks, templates, mindsets, and some are brilliant, while others just stay with us because we have already made room for them. Letting go of those pieces feels like losing progress. Except, it is often the opposite. Our brains are designed to hold on, but also to clear out. I once read in a psychology paper that pruning is how the adult brain frees up space. We release patterns that no longer matter, so attention can shift to what does. The same applies to teams. I remember a time we simply stopped requiring a long introductory module for new learners, the typical onboarding documentation with all the charters and methods to avoid long explanations for newcomers. We kept thinking it was essential context. As it turned out, nobody really missed it, people became even more engaged through learning by doing, and the energy returned. We may have mistaken weight for depth. When Doing Less Opens More There is a rhythm to real learning: You stretch, then you focus. You gather, then you choose. Not everything we learn should stay with us forever, and that is totally fine. Some things are only meant to serve a stage, not a whole journey. And yet, we rarely give ourselves permission to clear that space. Sometimes the unnecessary step is physical: a form, a slide, a second meeting. Other times, it is something quieter: a belief, a fear, a voice in your head that says “this is how we do things here.” These are harder to spot as we feel like they are part of us, and we cannot let them go. I also think back to a moment when, like with the introductory models, someone in a team questioned why we always wrote lengthy summaries before a project kickoff. “What if we just started with a one-line intention instead?” they asked. It felt radical, almost wrong, especially as the Execs were the ones asking for it every time; back then I was not equipped with the team tools I have today. So we tried. The conversation shifted with an initial resistance, and it went from reporting to exploring. A small act of courage and a gesture that unlocked the door for better questions. What We Resist May Hold Us Back Letting go creates space for what matters next. Still, I understand the hesitation: if something helped us once, it feels disloyal and almost irrational to stop using it. If a system kept us safe, changing it feels way too risky. And if we built our sense of skill on a method or a tool, dropping it can shake our identity, so why change what seems to work? We also resist because we confuse usefulness with familiarity. Just because something fits into our rhythm does not mean it still adds value. I once caught myself repeating a feedback exercise during a Design Thinking session simply because I had done it ten times before and it was in my script. It landed flat, nobody was inspired. And when I asked for input, someone gently said, “It felt like it was just there to be there.” They were right. I had not taken the time to read the audience and adapt my method, and they had already reached their limit. The hardest things to unlearn are the ones that once worked. Especially if we were praised for them. How to Spot What Is Ready to Leave There are some quiet clues: Participation drops right after a task, or energy fades when a familiar step appears. People nod but do not engage. Sometimes you hear it in language: “This is how we always do it.” Or, “We probably still need this, right?” That “probably” hides a question nobody wants to ask. Templates are another trap. Helpful at first, they easily become boxes we fill rather than tools we use. I have seen brilliant minds edit their own thinking just to fit a format. Unlearning here might mean rethinking the frame entirely to fit the new scenario, but everybody must play the game, or it will remain a unilateral effort. None of this means we throw away everything. It just means we will look more closely at what still earns its place! A Personal Thought We live in a culture that celebrates knowing, performing, accumulating. There is pride in showing how much you have mastered, but less so in showing what you have consciously left behind. Yet every next step we take is shaped by what we are still carrying. Maybe learning should come with a simple question: what do I need to forget? That question invites reflection, it invites care. It brings us back to a more honest version of growth. Not as a race to gain, but as a choice to carry less, to carry better. Letting go is rarely loud. There is no ceremony, and there will be no badge. Just the quiet relief of space returning in your mind, some energy coming back. Of noticing that you are no longer stuck, simply because you put something down. So How Do We Unlearn? It often begins with noticing where things feel heavier than they should. A routine that drains more than it delivers. A process that once felt useful but now just sits there, ticking along without energy. That weight is not always loud, and it might just show up as hesitation, fatigue, or quiet resistance. Paying attention to that friction is often the first sign that something is ready to be questioned. Your next step does not need to be radical, start with something small and reversible. Remove one step, one field, one habit. See what shifts, what happens when you do less? Does the result change? Do people feel more present, more willing to contribute, more at ease? Often, clarity returns the moment clutter steps aside. And sometimes, the most powerful clue lies in silence. The part of a meeting nobody reacts to. The slide everyone skips past. The rule nobody challenges, even if it no longer fits. In those moments, it helps to ask one quiet question: If we had never done it this way before, would we choose to do it now? And have the courage to say it out loud, nobody else will! Unlearning is a conscious act that belongs to progress just as much as design, strategy, and care. Learn to Unlearn, and celebrate it! Some sources of inspiration: Harvard Business Review, “How to Keep Learning at Work — Even When You Feel Fried,” 2024 NeuroLeadership Institute, “The AGES Model for Learning,” 2023 ResearchGate, “The Process of Organisational Unlearning,” 2024 IEEE, “Machine Unlearning Techniques,” a response to legal, ethical, or user-driven needs such as GDPR’s right to be forgotten, guaranteeing complete removal without full retraining, 2025

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