Is it normal that when you see for example: a tutorial you forget the process of what you did how you did it and is there a way to remember anything.
just repeat the lesson a ton of time until you get the work flow as a habit almost. se a lesson on building a car, build a bunch of cars, see an interesting texture? do a project that uses variations of that texture a bunch of times. keep a bookmark of the tutorial so you can refer back to it again later. i guess this is why most people specialise in one area, rather than trying to learn everything! just don’t worry about having to refer back to lessons though
yeah, ive been at this for a while. and ever so often i find that i forgot how to do something i used once. or i need to learn how to use a whole different part of blender that Ive never had to use before. like cycles etc. i have very limited experience in rendering within blender, because most of my usage for blender is in either 3d printing, or making models for game engines (Unity mostly). so its a weak spot in my skills that would not exist if i had taken a different route in my 3d self education. Dont worry about forgetting something, or not knowing how to do something. just go to google and type “blender, what ever it is your trying to do” and you can usually get the answer within a minute or 2 of reading random blogs. lol
Not sure why I’m answering such vague and quick question (about modeling presumably since it’s in modeling subforum) but here goes.
Yes it’s normal for a beginner at least. There is so much information to absorb that it’s no surprise everything doesn’t soak in at once. Another reason could be in the tutorials you’re following - It might not give you the most important information that you should be learning from it, or you’re watching too advanced tutorial which requires a lot of previous knowledge to be useful to you, for the time being.
Try to learn what is being done and why. That’s not easy but in time you begin to understand workflows, techniques, processes, so on. If you don’t understand something, more tutorials, try it yourself. Also don’t rely on one information source to minimize the effect of wrong or missing information and to notice that the how part changes all the time. That’s why it’s the less important part of the learning process. If you know what and why, you can always find out what tools to use and how to use them in a short period of time. Or use alternative ways to achieve the same goal.
I was googling for info on a certain process earlier today, and I ran into my own tutorial that I forgot I wrote. hehe. It was very helpful too. :yes:
LOL…
It is daunting to state the least. For example I started with Blender almost 7 months now. When I follow a tut I follow exact. Once I complete I open an new file and start my own “like” file. Not the same, but a bit different. I download and save tuts I like and keep notepad notes in a folder with it that make sense to me. IGE: Creating a paint brush for textures. I keep the video and mark the time in the video the instructor gets to it. So when I am in the middle of a project and know I have been thru a lesson prior I go check my 3Tb drive for the lesson, my notes, and where at in the video the instructor shows the ‘meat’ of the lesson.
Then I run over here if all else fails… Then if that fails, Close the file and re start sometimes it is just a glich… Keep on blending. (no salt)
@Modron Sometimes, we forget just how smart we are, right? 
To answer the original question, what I’ve started doing is watching a tutorial all the way through once (unless I’m pretty sure it’s mostly things I’ve already seen before with a different approach). Then, I watch it through, doing the tutorial as they do it. It’s not uncommon, in this phase, to go back and watch a part several times or to pause so I can catch up before I get all the way through it. Then, I take another pass through trying to create the results of the tutorial without going back to the tutorial for reference. This might take 4 or 5 times before I get all the way through (especially if it’s one of Bartek Skorupa’s 
). Once I feel I have a solid understanding of the tutorial, then I try to create something different, based on what I learned in the tutorial. This tests what I learned in a different situation and helps me make sure I really understood.
Once I started doing it this way, I feel I get the most out of a tutorial.