Improving Retention of Long Term Memory

[Foggy]

My working memory is fine I think; a little poor maybe, but I don't have a lot of issues with it. My problem is that I forget information literally within weeks of learning it. Most of my memory is rather blurry. I can learn information for a test, but I won't remember anything from the class afterwards. I have very few vivid memories from my childhood and I'm only 18. I struggle remembering vocabulary that I'm not constantly using. It feels like anything above and beyond what I need at a given point in time is fairly quick to erase itself from my memory banks. This is in general very frustrating for me because it's very discouraging learning something new, knowing that within a month I'll remember only the vaguest details of it. Does anyone here have any advice for improving this?

[Brutha]

Everyone needs to use memories from time to time to keep them fresh.

Another factor that plays into your ability to remember is the meaning and importance that you attach to information.
Information alone is useless.
The thing you want is knowledge with comes from connecting and understanding ideas and attching importance to them.

[Foggy]

That probably would help. Some people seem to have innate abilities to remember a large amount of information effortlessly though, and I guess what I'm asking is for tips that will help me develop a really strong long term memory where knowledge is less likely to deteriorate.