Unlocking the power of retention can transform your reading experience. Dive into the science of memory and explore practical strategies that will help you absorb and recall the information you consume from your reading materials.
Quality matters more than quantity
If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention
- Speed-reading and absorbing the lessons are two different things
- Book summary services miss the point
- Summaries can be a useful jumping-off point to explore your curiosity, but you cannot learn from them the way you can from the original text
- Fancy apps and tools are not needed
- Finishing the book is optional
Remembering what you read
Make sure you remember what’s important
- Take notes
- There are hundreds of systems on the internet for notetaking
- Adapt one of them and adapt it until you have your own
- Before you start reading a new book, take out a blank sheet of paper
- Write down what you know about the book/subject you are about to read – a mind map
- When you’re done reading, put these blank sheets into a binder that you periodically review
- Review the binder every few months
Now what?
Apply what you’ve learned
- Four simple steps: choose a concept, teach it to someone unfamiliar with the subject, identify gaps in your understanding and go back to the source material, and review and simplify
- Make your notes searchable
- Reread (if you want to)
- Skim a lot of books
- Read a few
- Immediately re-read the best ones twice
Sections:
Active reading
Active reading
Active reading is thoughtfully engaging with a book at all steps in the reading process. From deciding to read right through to reflection afterwards, you have a plan for how you are going to ingest and learn what’s in the book.
- Your first goal when reading is to not be a passive consumer of information. You want to get the most out of each book we read, it is vital we know how to record, reflect, and put into action our conclusions.
