Partly curious question-asking and partially advice-seeking, but how do you reconcile the power of working memory with the limits of human capacity?

I personally have a terrible memory with almost zero ability to remember dates, names, or quotations. I know the way is not rote-memorization, but the only thing that seems to fix this problem is when I blunder and make incorrect assertions when conversing with others.

And while that's definitely effective, it's also akin to learning from the rear-view mirror.

One experiment I have been trying is to organize references on topics that interest me, using Mendeley in the case of hard-science topics and org-mode (Breaking big topics into lists upon sublists) for more general topics. I have friends that set up personal wikis for information pertaining to their hobbies, too.

In different ways, it is both a step-up and step-down from the quality of note-taking in lectures. I end up with more citations of primary literature, but without regular revisions, the information quickly falls out of date with what is in my head. It's too early to tell if the experiment will be worthwhile, but without it, subjects not visited for months quickly fade away...

I guess the question I ask you is: Do you organize your knowledge in some sort of tangible way? Does it work?