How successful people read: 8 simple rules

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Reading is helpful. This is confirmed by hundreds of stories of successful people who have a common passion - the love of books. But for books to really bear fruit and help you learn new things, you need to stop thoughtlessly sliding your eyes along the lines and change the very approach to reading. Let's talk about how to read it correctly.

George R. R. Martin once wrote: “The reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A person who never reads lives only one."

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, is convinced that reading is the fastest way to learn. The Chromeo duo spend most of their time in the library, as do business tycoons Warren Buffett and Charles Munger, who can spend whole days doing this.

Reading alone cannot guarantee success, but most successful people share a love of words.

But the most interesting thing is how they read. They do not just absorb words, but try to turn new knowledge into action. This is why they need to retain information in their memory, which is not easy even for the brightest minds.

Ask yourself if you can retell the content of an article that you read literally 10 minutes ago. What about the biography you barely finished reading last month? How many novels disappeared from memory as soon as you put the books aside?

Chances are, like most people, your memorization ability is much lower than you would like. It doesn't matter how much you read compared to how little you memorize. And in that regard, you have more in common with Guy Pearce in Remember than with Bradley Cooper in Realms of Darkness.

Therefore, we suggest that you radically change your approach to reading in order to learn how to memorize as much as possible and apply the knowledge gained in life.

1. Define goals

In order to learn something, you must first understand why you are reading. Your goal, your main task should be your guiding star. It will shield you from useless information, such as articles with tempting headlines or trivial "interesting facts."

The goal will guide you to useful information and help develop reading preferences. By understanding the underlying purpose, you will stop reading mindlessly (although sometimes you want to). We have already written about the need, and defining your goal is the first step on this path.

Which books should you choose? In a nutshell, everything that suits your goal and interests. The main thing is to prioritize and manage your time wisely.

For example, your goal is to get a promotion in the sales department. This means that you must be able to sell and manage people. First, you read the best books on sales and management techniques, and in addition, books on psychology, self-development and motivation. This will help you avoid clickable articles with outdated sales theories and popular business books that have little or no useful information.

Your goal of getting a job will help you route through the different books. As you finish reading about sales and psychology, your goal leads you to study the biographies of the best salespeople: you will want to understand how they succeeded. Or you might want to learn how to manage office policies or work for your brand. Your guiding star will keep you on track.

What about learning for the sake of learning? Curiosity is also a great reason to read, as long as it doesn't go against your primary goals. For example, if you are going to improve your marketing knowledge in the next three months, and 100% of your free time is reading about diving, this is hardly an effective waste of time. But if you read about marketing 75% of the time and diving 25% of the time, it is not only safe for your interests, but sometimes even useful.

But whatever your goals, continually review your informational diet menu like you're on a real diet to make sure you are getting all the nutrients you need.

Assess the importance of the resources you visit most often, and only refer to those that are useful. In a world that floods you with information, it is critical to be aware of what you are reading.

2. Get involved in reading

Reading is more of a conversation than a lecture. Reading someone's words, you enter into a silent dialogue with the author. You can maintain a conversation and memorize information for many years, or you can let the author "finish" to the end of the book, and then let the words disappear from memory. The best way to learn is to maintain a conversation.

So when you read, don't let your eyes just slide over the pages. about the material. Highlight or mark portions of text that seem important or controversial. Connect with books and articles you have already read. Write down your questions, your ideas, your impressions. If you are having difficulty with something, take notes. Learn more about working with notes.

By interacting with the material, and not just passively absorbing information, you are conducting an internal dialogue, thanks to which you will be able to remember much more.

3. Don't read quickly

In an age of efficiency, we try to grasp information as quickly as possible. But reading takes time. All the benefits of it do not appear immediately, usually after reading a significant part of the book.

Reading speed is a skill that can and should be perfected. But the ability to quickly absorb words by processing basic information comes with experience, by itself. Your brain will process language and ideas the faster the more often you interact with them. So, first, remember your main goal: do you want to add a book to your checklist, or do you really want to learn something new?

Another benefit of reading is that you enjoy the process itself. Without a hackneyed philosophy, the ultimate goal of life is joy. Some ideas are too important, too much invested in them to go over them with my eyes. Remember that your goal is to learn, not read as many books as possible.

4. Choose the format that's right for you

Choose the format that suits you best and that best suits your purpose: paper book, e-book, or audio.

For some people, the main way of obtaining information about the world around them is by listening, they are called audials. And for them the most preferred format is audiobook … While some fall asleep under an audiobook, as in a lecture, others, on the contrary, find it more convenient to perceive information by ear. The audio format gives more opportunities for reading on the move (while traveling by train or in a car or exercising in the gym) and is indispensable for people who are too mobile and cannot sit in one place for a long time with a book in their hands.

EBook has a number of advantages over the paper counterpart. A reader or smartphone with a reading app smaller than a bookcase. The electronic version is several times cheaper, because the lion's share of the cost of a printed book is the cost of paper, printing and transportation. The lengthy publishing process is shortened and the book reaches the reader earlier. It also made it easier to get hold of any book. It is unlikely that residents of large cities faced such a problem, but in regions where not everything is smooth with the book infrastructure, this is relevant.

But reading is a strain on the eyes. And even the most modern electronic displays get tired eyes faster than traditional books. The night mode and the ability to adjust the backlight do not help. In this regard, electronic ink is good, but even they are far from perfect.

There are certain psychological barriers associated with reading e-books. We are accustomed to reading fluently from the screen - the gaze jumps from line to line, searches for the most important thing, skips entire paragraphs. Therefore, when you open the reading room, it is difficult to quickly rebuild, the attention is scattered. Reading printed book always more thoughtful and measured.

5. Write down and revise

Reading comprehension is key and shouldn't stop once you've finished reading the book.

Referring to your favorite passages from time to time is the best way to keep the most important parts of the book in your mind. This will help to put the lessons into practice when a suitable opportunity or idea arises.

So when you finish reading the book, go back to the passages that sparked the most interest and take notes. To organize your notes, you can use - a simple and convenient tool in which you can add tags, which means you can easily find the desired note. Or just start a notebook or journal.

Whichever tool you use, keep in mind that you will need to return to your notes later, so be sure to consider a tagging and heading system. A simple system is suitable: who said what the quote is about, an article or book about, a topic, and so on. It will be easier to find the desired passage later.

6. Process and analyze

Only a few have excellent photographic memory. If you can't brag about it, over time you will forget most of what you read. Therefore, as they say, repetition is the mother of learning.

Learning again is a natural and necessary part of any learning.

Writer and business coach Ramit Sethi recommends an interesting technique: every 4-6 weeks he sets aside 40 minutes to revise his notes and annotations for books and articles. It does not matter when the note was made: a month, a year, or three years ago, Ramit selects those notes that fit the topic with what he is currently working on.

Books cannot remind of themselves. Therefore, you have to remind yourself what knowledge you need to refresh, plunging into a new topic.

Develop a system for checking your records. For example, do a monthly review of recent notes, or select by tags those that you need for work, for self-development, or for building relationships with other people. You can analyze notes sequentially or randomly.

7. Use new knowledge in practice

You follow our advice and you have accumulated a lot of knowledge. A logical question arises: what to do with all this material? Of course, put it into practice!

And you need to start with the right questions. Ask yourself: do you agree with what you have read or do you think the author is mistaken? What makes the text you read so special? Why is the author raising this issue? How does his argument relate to your personal beliefs? Do you have any questions? Did the book interest you? Honestly answering such questions, already in the process you yourself will understand how you can use new knowledge to your advantage.

You can send the findings of an unusual study in a psychology book to colleagues to make meetings more productive. A sales strategy that you disagree with can be a topic of discussion at work the next day. A well-written friendship text will inspire you to reconnect with an old friend. Or maybe you can't figure out what you think about what you read - this is the beginning of a fruitful discussion with friends.

The key question guiding this process is "Why?" Why does the book propel you to action? Why do you agree or disagree? The answer to all these "why" will help you get closer to the answer to the question "How to use the material in life?"

If you've learned about a new marketing concept, take five minutes and think about why it works for someone and how it can be used in your company. If new questions arise or you notice gaps in your knowledge, keep looking for new sources and repeat this process over and over.

And further. When you use knowledge in your life, write down the results and conclusions.

8. Collect and share books and articles

With the right approach, reading can change your life. And sometimes the life of the people around you. So many great ideas are gathering dust on the shelves!

Post your blog posts. Valuable ideas can be helpful to others in their work and life. In this case, your goal is not to look smart, but to extend the life of the ideas that helped you.

Work is the right place to share your ideas. You can establish cooperation with colleagues, tell them about research results, share excerpts from books, expert opinions. Most do not do this at work, which makes any exchange of knowledge an exceptional event.

Despite the apparent simplicity, each of these tips can seriously change the way you read and the amount of material you absorb. Follow your curiosity, solve problems, read purposefully. Conduct a mental dialogue with a book or article. Take notes and come back to them constantly. Think about how you can use the lessons learned in life. Share your findings with friends, family, and colleagues. And then you will see how much value you get from every book, blog post, and article.

Remember, knowledge is potential. But in order to realize it, you need to remember and use knowledge. So read it with pleasure!