| Sent Wednesday 18th of October
Joseph Addison said;
“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.”
And he was right… If we don’t exercise our mind then it can become stagnant and sloppy. Reading is essential to our growth. It helps us to learn, understand, change our perspectives and gives us ideas to try new things.
So here are my…
4 TIPS FOR BETTER READING
ONE: Be Consistent.
It’s actually reasonably easy to get through a decent amount of books just by doing a little bit each day. For example; let’s say you read for 15 minutes before going to bed instead of scrolling on your phone (this is good sleep hygiene, by the way, remove blue light screens before bed). We can average one page per minute, that’s 15 pages per night. If we say the average non-fiction book is 300 pages long then it means you could get through one book roughly every 20 days and that’s around 18 books per year!
That’s some serious learning and growth.
TWO: Quit Early
Not all books are good! Some just won’t resonate with you. If you were watching a TV series, turned to your partner and went; “This is $h!t”, would you both stay there watching for another 10 hours? No. Same with a book. Don’t like it? Not for you? Move on quickly.
I’ll give it one fifth of a book max, if it doesn’t catch me by then; NEXT!
THREE: Read Half As Much – Twice
This was a concept introduced to me by author Rolf Dobelli. We’re not looking to just smash through books for the sake of it. We’re looking to really derive value out of them. It is suggested that reading comprehension can increase 5 to 10 times on the second read.
If I have no new books to read, I will re-read an old one that was awesome. I ALWAYS learn new things that way and quite often I’m ready to implement concepts I wasn’t the first time around.
FOUR: Highlight – Write – Action
This is my formula for getting growth out of any book. I never read without my highlighter. I’m searching for treasure. Find some? Highlight it. At the end of the book I then write down all the highlighted sections into a document so I have all the best bits of the book at my fingertips and I have imprinted them even harder by typing them out.
Then…
And this is the most important bit…
I figure out how learning these things can improve my life and action them.
There’s no point collecting knowledge and not applying it. Take the awesomeness that your learned and make your own life better because if it. That’s the game, right?
As Jim Rohn said;
“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.”
Much love,
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